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“While the Region of the Americas has managed to reduce new cases and deaths from
tuberculosis in the last 15 years, ending this disease is only possible if progress is accelerated,”
said Dr. Marcos Espinal, Director of the Department of Communicable Diseases and
Environmental Determinants of Health at PAHO. “Countries should expand access to diagnosis
with rapid molecular tests and timely quality treatment for those who need it. They must also

work with people, communities and other sectors on the social determinants that facilitate
transmission of this disease.”

In 2017, WHO estimated 282,000 new cases of tuberculosis in the Americas, 11% of which

were in people living with HIV. In all, 87% of cases were concentrated in 10 countries, with
Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Mexico and Peru reporting two thirds of the total cases and deaths.
According to a PAHO report published in September 2018, an estimated 24,000 people died in
2017 from tuberculosis in the Region, and 6,000 of them were coinfected with HIV.

“It’s time!” campaign

The slogan for this year’s World TB Day campaign is “It’s time for Action. End TB”. This serves
as a reminder that fulfilling the commitments made by heads of state in September last year at
the first High Level Meeting of the United Nations’ General Assembly on tuberculosis, must be

accelerated. At the meeting, world leaders agreed to implement bold goals and urgent
measures to end the disease.

Ending the global tuberculosis epidemic is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). WHO’s End TB Strategy, adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2014, aims
to reduce deaths from TB by 90% and the incidence of the disease (number of new cases each

year) by 80% by 2030, compared to 2015 levels. Three intermediate goals have also been
established for 2020: reduce TB deaths by 35%, reduce the TB incidence rate by 20%, and
ensure that families affected by TB do not face catastrophic costs for treating the disease.

Challenges to ending TB in the Americas

The persistence of tuberculosis is due, to a great extent, to the social and economic inequalities
that remain in the Region. Since 2015, deaths fell by 2.5% on average per year and new cases
dropped by 1.6%, but according to PAHO’s September 2018 report, they need to fall at a rate of
12% and 8% per year, respectively, to achieve the intermediate targets for 2020 and continue to

decline until 2030.