World Tuberculosis Day – 24 March 2015
Gear up to end TB
Find TB.Treat TB.Working together to eliminate TB
World TB Day, falling on March 24th each year, is designed to build public awareness that tuberculosis today remains an epidemic in much of the world, causing the deaths of nearly one-and-a-half million people each year, mostly in developing countries. It commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. At the time of Koch’s announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people. Koch’s discovery opened the way towards diagnosing and curing TB.
World TB Day provides the opportunity to raise awareness about TB-related problems and solutions and to support worldwide TB-control efforts. While great strides have been made to control and cure TB, people still get sick and die from this disease in our country. Much more needs to be done to eliminate this disease.
This year CDC selected the theme “Find TB. Treat TB. Working together to eliminate TB.” to highlight that TB is still a life-threatening problem in the United States, despite the declining number of TB cases. Anyone can get TB, and our current efforts to find and treat latent TB infection and TB disease are not sufficient. Misdiagnosis of TB still exists and health care professionals often do not “think TB.”
This year’s World TB Day theme encourages local and state TB programs to reach out to their communities to raise awareness about TB. We don’t have to fight TB alone; we should partner with others who are also caring for those most at risk for TB such as people with HIV infection or diabetes, and the homeless. Everyone has a role in ensuring that one day TB will be eliminated.
World TB Day, 24 March, is an opportunity to raise awareness about the burden of tuberculosis (TB) worldwide and the status of TB prevention and control efforts.
