Tuberculosis is as dangerous as HIV.

Although curable, tuberculosis still claimed the lives of approximately 1.1 million people in 2014 and has become as dangerous as HIV/AIDS.

According to the BBC, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that tuberculosis has become a dangerous infectious disease alongside HIV. The WHO considers this unacceptable because tuberculosis is curable, and emphasizes the risks of drug resistance.

Photo: BBC.

Dr. Mario Raviglione from the WHO stated: "Tuberculosis and HIV are competing to be the world's leading cause of death." The majority of new tuberculosis cases are concentrated in China, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

The number of deaths from HIV/AIDS has decreased since the mid-2000s and is now around 1.2 million people infected each year. In 2014, tuberculosis claimed the lives of 1.5 million people; 400,000 of these people were already infected with HIV and are therefore not included in this figure.

Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, noted that humanity has had effective treatments for tuberculosis since 1990, but "if we want to end this pandemic, we need to scale up and invest in research."

Photo: SPL.

Doctors Without Borders agrees with the WHO's statistics and warns that the world is struggling to cope with drug-resistant tuberculosis. Three out of every 100 new tuberculosis cases are untreatable with antibiotics. Dr. Grania Brigden from the organization stated that this is "a wake-up call" and that "without concrete action, a large number of people with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis will not have the opportunity to be diagnosed and treated."

In 2016, the WHO will focus on a strategy to end tuberculosis and hopes to reduce mortality rates by 90% by 2030.

According to vnexpress