Tuberculosis is preventable and curable, yet it still kills more than a million people a year, and the decline since 2015 has been far too slow to meet global targets.
Updated October 13, 2026. Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Out of every 100 people in the world, roughly how many are estimated to have been infected with TB bacteria?
10.7 million
People who fell ill with TB
5.8 million men, 3.7 million women and 1.2 million children and young adolescents. About 2.4 million of them were not diagnosed or not officially reported.
Data year 2024. Source: World Health Organization, 2025
1.23 million
Deaths from TB
Including 150,000 people living with HIV. Deaths fell by 29% between 2015 and 2024, against a 2025 milestone of 75%.
Data year 2024. Source: World Health Organization, 2025
US$5.9 billion
Funding available for TB services
Down from US$6.5 billion in 2019, and only 27% of the US$22 billion a year that countries committed to mobilise by 2027.
Data year 2024. Source: World Health Organization, 2025
Unit: % (case fatality ratio)
WHO modelled estimates of the case fatality ratio, the estimated share of people who develop TB that die from it. Only the years stated in the source text are plotted; values for 2020 and 2021 are not given there. Even at 11.5%, roughly one in nine people who fell ill with TB in 2024 died.
SDG target 3.3 aims to end the TB epidemic by 2030. As a step towards it, WHO's End TB Strategy set a 2025 milestone of cutting the TB incidence rate by 50% compared with 2015; by 2024 the net reduction was only 12%. At the 2023 UN high-level meeting on TB, countries committed to mobilising at least US$22 billion a year for prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care by 2027, but only US$5.9 billion, 27% of that amount, was available in 2024.
About 87% of new TB cases in 2024 were in 30 high-burden countries. India alone had 25% of the global total, followed by Indonesia (10%), the Philippines (6.8%), China (6.5%) and Pakistan (6.3%).
Source: World Health Organization, 2026An estimated 614,000 adult men died of TB in 2024, compared with 442,000 adult women. Another 174,000 deaths were among children and young adolescents under 15.
Source: World Health Organization, 2025About half of the people treated for TB and their households face total costs above 20% of their annual household income. Only 9.7% of people in low-income countries have access to at least one social protection benefit, compared with 86% in high-income countries.
Source: World Health Organization, 2025Undernutrition was linked to an estimated 0.97 million new TB cases in 2024, the most of the five risk factors WHO estimates, and people living with HIV are 12 times more likely to fall ill with TB than people without HIV.
Source: World Health Organization, 2026Each country is shaded by its latest available value, so you can see where the gap is widest. Hover or tap a country, search for one, or open the full table.
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Values in per 100,000 people.
WHO modelled estimates of new and relapse TB cases of all forms, including among people living with HIV, shown for the latest year available in each country (currently 2024 everywhere; years can differ); WHO revises them as new data arrive. Because these are rates, small countries with high rates stand out, while populous countries with the most cases in absolute terms can look lighter.
Source: WHO Global Tuberculosis Report, via World Bank Open Data. Latest year available per country; years differ.
Values load from World Bank Open Data. Simplified Natural Earth borders; they imply no position on disputed territories.
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
ModerateTB deaths fell by 29% between 2015 and 2024, and the share of people with TB who die from it dropped from 13.6% in 2019 to 11.5% in 2024. That is real progress, but far short of the 75% cut in deaths the End TB Strategy set for 2025.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateTreatment succeeds for 88% of people with drug-susceptible TB and 71% of those with rifampicin-resistant TB, for whom WHO has prioritised a 6-month all-oral regimen since 2022. But treatment still takes months, and BCG, the vaccine given to babies and young children in some countries, protects children from serious forms of TB; vaccines that could protect people across age groups are still in trials.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
ModerateIn 2024 about 78% of the people estimated to have fallen ill were diagnosed and reported, and 54% of those diagnosed were first tested with a rapid molecular test. Reach is far lower for drug-resistant TB, where about 42% of people were treated, and for preventive treatment of household contacts, at 25%.
WHO estimates rest on reports from almost every country, but for 92 countries, which account for 45% of estimated TB deaths among people without HIV, deaths are calculated from incidence and the case fatality ratio rather than counted. The global estimate of TB deaths among people without HIV in 2024 has an uncertainty range of 0.99 to 1.18 million.
Both incidence and deaths fell in 2024, and shorter treatment and prevention regimens are spreading quickly. Against this, 11 of 17 countries that had received both Global Fund grants and US bilateral funding reported moderate or severe disruption to TB screening and community work after the 2025 donor cuts, and modelling studies point to severe increases in cases and deaths in the coming years.
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by bacteria that usually attack the lungs, and it passes through the air when a person with the disease coughs, sneezes or spits. WHO estimates that about a quarter of the world's population has been infected, but most infected people do not feel ill and cannot pass the bacteria on; about 5–10% eventually develop the disease. Because symptoms such as a lasting cough, fever, night sweats and weight loss can stay mild for months, people may spread TB before they know they have it. The disease is preventable and curable, and global efforts against it are estimated to have saved 83 million lives since 2000. Even so, in 2024 an estimated 10.7 million people fell ill with TB and 1.23 million died.
More than 80% of cases and deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, and 30 high-burden countries account for about 87% of new cases. Adult men fall ill and die more often than women, and undernutrition, diabetes, alcohol use disorders, smoking and HIV each account for hundreds of thousands of new cases a year. About half of the people treated for TB, together with their households, face costs above 20% of their annual household income. Drug-resistant TB is harder to treat: an estimated 390,000 people developed multidrug- or rifampicin-resistant TB in 2024, and only about two in five of them were treated. Cuts to international donor funding since 2025 put recent gains at risk.
Many people with TB are never diagnosed or never reported to health authorities, so WHO combines case reports, death registration, national surveys and modelling. The main measures are:
Estimated incidence
The modelled number of people who develop TB disease in a year, including relapses, also expressed per 100,000 population. People who carry the bacteria without being ill are not counted. Estimates come with uncertainty ranges and are revised as new data arrive.
Case notifications
The number of people diagnosed with TB and officially reported to national programmes. The gap between notifications and estimated incidence shows how many people are missed or not recorded.
Deaths and case fatality ratio
For people without HIV, WHO takes TB deaths from national or sample death registration in 108 countries, uses published estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation for 15, and for the remaining 92 multiplies estimated incidence by the case fatality ratio, the share of people with TB who die from it. TB deaths among people living with HIV are officially classed as HIV deaths, with TB as a contributing cause, but WHO reports them alongside other TB deaths.
Drug-resistant TB
TB that does not respond to standard drugs. Rifampicin-resistant TB (RR-TB) does not respond to rifampicin, a key first-line drug, and multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) does not respond to either rifampicin or isoniazid. The two are usually reported together as MDR/RR-TB.
What works
Rapid molecular tests recommended by WHO let people be diagnosed sooner and started on the right treatment. In 2024 such a test was the first test used for 54% of the 8.3 million people newly diagnosed with TB, up from 48% in 2023.
Limits
Many current tests are expensive and depend on samples being transported to central laboratories, which has slowed their uptake. About 2.4 million people who fell ill in 2024 were not diagnosed or not officially reported.
What works
Drug-susceptible TB is treated with a combination of medicines taken daily for four to six months. Treatment succeeds for 88% of people who receive it.
Limits
The long course is hard to complete without help with travel, lost income and side effects. About half of the people treated for TB and their households face costs above 20% of their annual income, against an End TB Strategy target of zero.
What works
In 2022 WHO prioritised a 6-month all-oral regimen, known as BPaLM or BPaL, for eligible people with drug-resistant TB. The number of people started on 6-month regimens rose from 1,744 in 2022 to 34,256 in 2024, in 97 countries, and treatment success for rifampicin-resistant TB has risen to 71%.
Limits
Only 164,545 of the estimated 390,000 people who developed multidrug- or rifampicin-resistant TB in 2024 were treated, and success rates are still well below those for drug-susceptible TB.
What works
Giving medicines to people at high risk of developing TB disease, such as close contacts of people with TB and people living with HIV, lowers the chance that an infection turns into illness. In 2024, 5.3 million people received preventive treatment, including 3.5 million close contacts and 1.8 million people living with HIV.
Limits
Coverage reached only 25% of household contacts and 58% of people living with HIV. Finding and assessing contacts depends on outreach work, which donor cuts have disrupted in several countries.
What works
Testing people with TB for HIV and treating both infections together saves lives: the scale-up of TB treatment and antiretroviral therapy since 2005 is estimated to have averted 9.8 million deaths. In 2024, 82% of people diagnosed with TB had a documented HIV test result.
Limits
Only 61% of the estimated number of people living with HIV who developed TB received antiretroviral therapy in 2024, and about 150,000 people died of HIV-associated TB.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
In March 2026 WHO recommended portable molecular tests that can run on battery power close to where people seek care, cost less than half as much as many existing molecular tests and give results in under an hour. It also recommended tongue swabs for adults and adolescents who cannot produce sputum, and pooling sputum samples where resources are very limited. Roll-out has only just begun, and its pace will depend on funding and procurement.
Rifamycin-based preventive regimens lasting one to three months are easier to complete than longer courses. They reached 2.1 million people in 88 countries in 2024, more than double the 1.0 million reached in 2023, but still made up a minority of the 5.3 million people given preventive treatment.
In August 2025, 18 TB vaccine candidates were in clinical trials and six had reached phase 3, among them M72/AS01E and MTBVAC. No phase 3 efficacy results for M72/AS01E had been published by October 2026. WHO points out that vaccine development has high attrition and expects only a minority of candidates to reach licensure.
As of August 2025, 29 drugs for treating TB disease were in phase 1, 2 or 3 trials, and new drug combinations and treatments aimed at the body's own response to infection were also being studied. The aim is shorter, simpler and better-tolerated treatment for all forms of TB; whether any candidate improves on current regimens will only be known from larger trials.
Implementation gap
Funding available for essential TB services fell from US$6.5 billion in 2019 to US$5.9 billion in 2024, only 27% of the US$22 billion a year that countries committed to mobilise by 2027.
Coordination gap
The United States provided about half of all international donor funding for TB between 2015 and 2024. After its cuts in 2025, and a US$1.4 billion (11%) reduction in Global Fund grants for 2024–2026, 11 of 17 countries that had received both Global Fund and US bilateral funding reported moderate or severe disruption to TB screening and community work. In Uganda, TB notifications fell 14% in the first half of 2025 compared with 2024.
Implementation gap
About 2.4 million people who fell ill in 2024 were not diagnosed or not officially reported, and only about 42% of the estimated 390,000 people with multidrug- or rifampicin-resistant TB were treated.
Technology gap
WHO's priority is a vaccine that works before and after exposure across age groups, and it says the 2035 targets cannot be met without major technological breakthroughs. Yet funding for TB research and development was US$1.2 billion in 2023, far below the target of US$5 billion a year by 2027.
Coordination gap
About half of the people treated for TB face catastrophic costs, and undernutrition, diabetes, alcohol use and smoking each account for hundreds of thousands of new cases. Tackling these causes depends on social protection, nutrition and other sectors beyond health programmes, yet only 9.7% of people in low-income countries have access to at least one social protection benefit.
Knowledge gap
Only 108 countries supply death registration data that WHO uses directly; for 92 others, deaths are calculated from estimated incidence, so global figures carry wide uncertainty. Aid cuts have also made recent trends harder to track: WHO says it is too early to assess 2025 funding reliably.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
About a quarter of people worldwide have been infected with TB bacteria, yet only a small share ever fall ill. Can simple, affordable tests identify those at highest risk so that preventive treatment reaches the right people?
Will M72/AS01E or another phase 3 candidate prevent lung TB in adolescents and adults, how long would protection last, and how could a vaccine be delivered quickly enough to change the course of the epidemic?
Symptoms can stay mild for months. How much transmission comes from people with mild or no symptoms, and is screening whole communities with chest X-rays or molecular tests a cost-effective way to find them?
How much would food support, cash transfers and other social protection reduce new TB cases and improve treatment outcomes, and how should health and social programmes share the cost?
A cough that lasts for weeks, especially with fever, night sweats or weight loss, is a reason to see a health worker and ask about a TB test. TB is curable, and starting treatment early also lowers the chance of passing it on.
Use person-first language such as "people with TB", and offer practical support to friends, relatives or colleagues who need to complete months of treatment.
Organisations that find and treat people with TB, support patients through treatment or fund research rely on donations. Look for groups that publish independent evaluations and cost data before you give.
In many low-income countries, TB programmes depend heavily on international aid. Letting elected representatives know that you support global health and TB research funding is one of the few ways individuals can influence it.
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World Health Organization, published 2025
WHO's two-page summary of the Global tuberculosis report 2025 (published 12 November 2025), with estimates for 2024. Source of incidence (10.7 million; by sex and age), the 2.4 million gap, the 12% incidence-rate reduction against the 50% milestone, funding (US$6.5 billion in 2019, US$5.9 billion in 2024, 27% of US$22 billion), MDR/RR-TB estimates and treatment, 6-month regimens, rapid testing, preventive treatment, treatment success, catastrophic costs, social protection and risk factors.
World Health Organization, published 2025
Report chapter on TB deaths in 2024. Source of the 1.23 million deaths (1.08 million among HIV-negative people, uncertainty 0.99–1.18 million; 150,000 among people with HIV), the 29% reduction since 2015 against the 75% milestone, deaths among men, women and children, the case fatality ratio for 2019 and 2022–2024, and the methods box on death registration (108 countries), IHME estimates (15) and indirect estimates (92 countries, 45% of HIV-negative deaths).
World Health Organization, published 2025
WHO's early assessment of the 2025 cuts in international donor funding. Source of the US share of donor funding for TB in 2015–2024, the US$1.4 billion (11%) cut to the Global Fund 2024–2026 grant cycle, severe or moderate service disruptions reported by 11 of 17 countries that received both Global Fund and USAID funding, the 14% fall in notifications in Uganda, and the statement that a reliable funding assessment for 2025 was not yet possible.
World Health Organization, published 2025
Report chapter on research funding and the development pipeline as of August 2025. Source of research funding (US$1.2 billion in 2023 against US$5 billion a year by 2027), the 29 drugs in clinical trials, the 18 vaccine candidates (six in phase 3, including M72/AS01E and MTBVAC), WHO's vaccine priorities and its note on high attrition in vaccine development.
World Health Organization (24 March 2026), published 2026
WHO's current overview of TB, based on 2024 data. Source of the estimate that about a quarter of the world's population has been infected and 5–10% develop disease, symptoms and transmission, the 4–6 month treatment, the 2022 BPaLM/BPaL recommendation, BCG, HIV-related figures (12 times higher risk, 82% tested, 61% on ART, 9.8 million deaths averted), risk factors and country shares.
World Health Organization (news release, 24 March 2026), published 2026
Source of WHO's 2026 recommendations on near point-of-care molecular tests, tongue swabs and sputum pooling, including their cost, power and turnaround features, and of the barriers of cost and sample transport that have slowed uptake of rapid tests.