With the TB statistics for a country there will generally be two main types of TB statistics. There will be reports of actual cases, the incidence, which is the minimum number of people affected, but these TB statistics are of limited use if many cases go unreported. There are also estimates, which are often used to give the proportion of people living with TB, that is the prevalence. There will always be various assumptions made in compiling estimates, which is why they can sometimes provide very different figures from the TB statistics based on reported cases.
Incidence & Prevalence
TB statistics and indeed the statistics for other diseases, will often refer to the incidence and prevalence of a disease. The terms are not the same.
Prevalence refers to the number of cases of TB that are present in a particular population at a given time. Prevalence includes newly diagnosed people, plus people who were diagnosed in the past, and people who haven't even been diagnosed. Prevalence is usually, but not always given as a percentage of the population.1“Basic Statistics: About Incidence, Prevalence, Morbidity, and Mortality - Statistics Teaching Tools”, Department of Health, New York State www.health.ny.gov/diseases/chronic/basicstat.htm
Incidence refers to the number of new cases of TB that develop in a given period of time. Incidence means the number of people who are newly diagnosed with TB in a given period of time (usually a year). The cases of TB page gives the estimated incidence of almost every country in the world.
Incidence & prevalence statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO)
All countries are asked to report their TB figures to the WHO. WHO then uses these notified figures to help produce estimated total TB incidence statistics for each country. These and other statistics are the figures referred to on this page.
The prevalence comes from surveys which are only produced for a limited number of countries.
TB related deaths
TB is one of the top ten leading causes of death worldwide and the leading cause from a single infectious agent, ranking above HIV/AIDS.
In 2017 there were a total of 1,600,000 TB related deaths.
Also an estimated 234,000 children died of TB in 2017 including children with HIV associated TB. People who have both TB and HIV when they die, are internationally classified as having died from HIV.
There is more about deaths from TB including the 234,000 mainly preventable deaths in children.
TB disease
There were an estimated 10.0 million new cases of TB disease (also known as active TB) in 2017. TB affects all countries and age groups but overall the best estimates for 2017 were that ninety per cent were adults (aged > or = 15), 64% were male, 9% were people living with HIV (72% of them in Africa). Two thirds were in eight countries India (27%), China (9%), Indonesia (8%), the Philippines (6%), Pakistan (5%), Nigeria (4%) and South Africa (3%).
Only 6% of cases were in the WHO European Region and the WHO Region of the Americas, each of which has 3% of cases.
The global TB statistics show that in 2017 there were an estimated one million and ten thousand cases of TB in children ©Tobias Hofass
There is more about TB in India, TB in China, TB in the United States TB in South Africa & TB in Nigeria.
In 2017 an estimated one million and ten thousand children became ill with TB.
The severity of national epidemics varies widely. In 2017 there were under 10 new cases per 100,000 population in most high income countries. There were 150-400 in most of the 30 high TB burden countries, and above 500 in a few countries including Mozambique, the Philippines and South Africa.
Drug resistant TB
Globally in 2017 there were an estimated 558,000 new cases of rifampicin (RR-TB) resistant TB. People with rifampicin resistant TB are now eligible for the same treatment as people with MDR TB. Drug resistant TB is now an increasing problem in the worldwide control of TB and in the attempts to end TB.
Treatment outcomes for drug resistant TB
Although they are improving globally and in some countries, the success rates for the treatment of drug resistant TB are considered by the World Health Organisation to be unacceptably low.
Bovine TB
It is estimated that in some developing countries up to ten percent of human tuberculosis is due to bovine TB.
Regional TB statistics
| WHO Region | TB incidence |
|---|---|
| Africa | 2,480,000 |
| Americas | 282,000 |
| Eastern Mediterranean | 771,000 |
| Europe | 273,000 |
| South-East Asia | 4,440,000 |
| Western Pacific | 1,800,000 |
| Global Total | 10,000,000 |
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Worldwide TB incident rates
Estimated TB Incidence rates 2016
TB incidence for “high burden” countries
Of all the countries that report their TB statistics to WHO, there are 22 countries that were referred to as the TB “high burden” countries. These countries had been prioritized at a global level since 2000. Between them they accounted for 83% of all estimated incident cases of TB worldwide in 2014. In addition to the main list there were two other lists, a list of high burden TB/HIV co-infection countries, and a third list of high burden MDR-TB countries.
In 2015 it was decided by WHO that the lists would be revised but that there would still be three lists. Each list would contain 30 countries. There is more about this on the TB high burden countries page.
The following is the estimated burden of TB for each of the 30 countries in the main high TB burden list.
| Country | Total TB Incidence | HIV positive TB Incidence | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angola | 107,000 | 18,000 | 30,000,000 |
| Bangladesh | 364,000 | 550 | 165,000,000 |
| Brazil | 91,000 | 11,000 | 209,000,000 |
| Cambodia | 52,000 | 1,300 | 16,000,000 |
| Central African Republic | 20,000 | 6,200 | 5,000,000 |
| China | 889,000 | 12,000 | 1,410,000,000 |
| Congo | 20,000 | 5,300 | 5,000,000 |
| DPR Korea | 131,000 | 170 | 25,000,000 |
| DP Congo | 262,000 | 20,000 | 81,000,000 |
| Ethiopia | 172,000 | 12,000 | 105,000,000 |
| India | 2,740,000 | 86,000 | 1,340,000,000 |
| Indonesia | 842,000 | 36,000 | 264,000,000 |
| Kenya | 158,000 | 45,000 | 50,000,000 |
| Lesotho | 15,000 | 11,000 | 2,000,000 |
| Liberia | 15,000 | 2,200 | 5,000,000 |
| Mozambique | 163,000 | 66,000 | 30,000,000 |
| Myanmar | 191,000 | 17,000 | 53,000,000 |
| Namibia | 11,000 | 3,900 | 3,000,000 |
| Nigeria | 418,000 | 58,000 | 191,000,000 |
| Pakistan | 525,000 | 7,300 | 197,000,000 |
| Papua New Guinea | 36,000 | 3,500 | 8,000,000 |
| Philippines | 581,000 | 7,100 | 105,000,000 |
| Russian Federation | 86,000 | 18,000 | 144,000,000 |
| Sierra Leone | 23,000 | 2,800 | 8,000 |
| South Africa | 322,000 | 193,000 | 57,000,000 |
| Thailand | 108,000 | 11,000 | 69,000,000 |
| UR Tanzania | 154,000 | 48,000 | 57,000,000 |
| Viet Nam | 124,000 | 4,500 | 96,000,000 |
| Zambia | 62,000 | 36,000 | 17,000,000 |
| Zimbabwe | 37,000 | 23,000 | 17,000,000 |
| Total for High Burden Countries | 8,720,000 | 766,000 | 4,760,000,000 |
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