TB rates in England remain among the highest in Western Europe. NICE guidance has been developed to improve treatment and prevention.
Significant progress has been achieved in tackling tuberculosis (TB), but it continues to rank alongside HIV as a leading cause of death worldwide and TB rates in England remain among the highest in Western Europe. To address the issue, NICE recently published guidance to improve treatment and prevention.
The World Health Organization recently stated that ‘the fight against tuberculosis is paying off’, with death rates halved since 1990. However, 1.5 million people died from TB in 2014 and WHO’s Global tuberculosis report 2015 pointed out that most of these deaths could have been prevented.
Most of the improvement has come since 2000, the year the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established. In all, effective diagnosis and treatment saved 43 million lives between 2000 and 2015. However, the WHO commented that, to reduce the burden of TB, detection and treatment gaps need to be closed, funding shortfalls filled and new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines developed.
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