UN projects close to a million TB deaths by 2035 if prevention not implemented

By Kevin Githuku

The UN health innovation initiative (Unitaid) has warned that the failure to implement Tuberculosis contact tracing and prevention could lead to close to one million deaths by 2035.

In Uganda, the TB prevalence rate, according to the Ministry of Health stands at 253 cases per 100,000 adults, while in children it is at 36 cases per 100,000,

The UN agency insisted that implementing a combined strategy of identifying household contacts and providing TB preventive treatment is cost-effective.

Unitaid said it could cut deaths by 35 percent among household contacts of patients and people living with HIV in the next 12 years.

The joint study by Unitaid, John Hopkins University in the United States, and the Aurum Institute, found that this strategy could save 850,000 lives by 2035, most of which could be children given the current low rate of identification for under 15s.

According to the research, failure to implement this combination intervention would result in close to 1 million deaths by 2035.

The findings are in line with the UN World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation that TB preventive treatment should be provided to those at the highest risk of infection.

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