According to the WHO, this increase in deaths is the result of a relaxation of diagnoses during the confinements linked to Covid-19 as well as the spread of tuberculosis resistant to an antibiotic indicated once morest the disease.
After two decades of uninterrupted decline, the death toll from tuberculosis is rising in Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday.
In 2021, the lung disease killed 27,300 Europeans, up from 27,000 the previous year, according to its latest available data. With some 4,900 and 3,600 estimated deaths respectively, Russia and Ukraine are the most affected countries.
A figure on the rise according to the WHO due to a relaxation of diagnoses during the confinements linked to Covid-19 as well as the spread of tuberculosis resistant to an antibiotic indicated once morest the disease. This is the first time in twenty years that the downward trend has reversed, according to the WHO.
Fewer contaminations last year
Across the 53 countries of the WHO Europe zone which also covers Central Asia, some 230,000 people have contracted tuberculosis, caused by a bacterium that mainly attacks the lungs – a total which remains down from compared to previous years.
“The increase in the number of TB deaths we are seeing in 2021 is most likely the consequence of delayed or missed TB diagnosis due to disruption of services (…) during the Covid-19 pandemic,” explained WHO Europe.
A rise in deaths observed worldwide
In addition, the prevalence of drug-resistant tuberculosis has also increased significantly, with one in three cases of rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis in 2021.
Globally, the WHO had already expressed concern in October regarding the increase, once more for the first time in more than twenty years, in new cases of tuberculosis in the world in 2021.
Some 10.6 million people developed the disease worldwide that year, according to his data.
