TB Statistics | Global, regional, high burden & MDR

National TB statistics

With national TB statistics there will generally be two main types of TB statistics. There will be reports of actual cases, 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 based on surveys, and they are often used to give the proportion of people living with TB. 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.

TB statistics and indeed the statistics for other diseases, will often refer to the incidence and prevalence of a disease. The TB incidence is the number of new cases of active TB disease in a population during a certain time period (usually a year). By contrast the TB prevalence is the number of people in the population who are living with active TB. Prevalence is usually, but not always given as a percentage of the population.1

Global TB statistics

There were an estimated 8.6 million new cases of TB in 2012.

There were an estimated 1.3 million deaths. Of these 940,000 deaths were among HIV negative people and there were a further 320,000 deaths among HIV positive people.

There were an estimated 2.9 million cases and 410,000 TB deaths among women (250,000 among HIV-negative women and 160,000 among HIV positive women). There were also an estimated 530,000 cases of TB in children and 74,000 deaths. The estimated number of deaths among children excludes TB deaths in HIV positive children, for which estimates are not yet available.

In 2009 there were almost 10 million children who were orphans as a result of at least one of their parents dying of TB.2

In 2012 there were an estimated 170,000 deaths from MDR TB, and 450,000 new cases of MDR-TB.

Regional TB statistics

All countries are asked to report their TB figures to the World Health Organisation (WHO), who then use these notified figures to help produce estimated total TB statistics for each country, region and globally. Globally it is thought that only about 65% of TB cases are notified. The WHO figures for the estimated incidence, prevalence and number of deaths from TB in each WHO region are given below.3

Estimated WHO Regional TB statistics for 2012

Region

TB Mortality

HIV Positive TB Mortality

Prevalence

Incidence

Population

Africa

230,000

250,000

2,700,000

2,300,000

892,529,000

Americas

19,000

6,400

390,000

280,000

961,103,000

Eastern Mediterranean

100,000

4,200

1,100,000

670,000

616,591,000

Europe

36,000

3,900

510,000

360,000

904,540,000

South-East Asia

450,000

51,000

4,800,000

3,400,000

1,833,359,000

Western Pacific

110,000

4,800

2,400,000

1,600,000

1,845,562,000

Global Total

940,000

320,000

12,000,000

8,600,000

7,053,684,000

The "mortality" figures exclude the deaths of people who had both TB and HIV infection at the time of their death, as these are internationally classified as HIV deaths. More information about the deaths of people with HIV and TB co-infection, can be found on the TB and HIV deaths page.

The figures for mortality, prevalence and incidence are only publicly given by WHO to two significant figures. There are also large uncertainty intervals with the range for the incidence being 8.3 to 9.0 million.

TB statistics for "high burden" countries

Of all the countries that report their TB statistics to WHO, there are 22 countries that are sometimes referred to as the TB "high burden" countries, and they have been prioritized at a global level since 2000. There are currently 22 of these countries and between them they accounted for 81% of all estimated cases of TB worldwide in 2012.4

TB statistics for MDR TB

Multi drug resistant TB (MDR TB) is the name given to TB when the bacteria that are causing it are resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampicin, the most effective TB drugs. In 2010 the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that there were globally 290,000 cases of MDR-TB among those cases of pulmonary TB that were reported to them.5 It was also estimated that in total there were 650,000 cases of MDR TB among the worlds 12 million prevalent cases of TB.6

There are 27 "high burden" countries for MDR-TB. These are countries where there are at least 4,000 cases of MDR TB each year, and/or at least 10% of newly registered TB cases are of MDR TB.

The table below shows the estimated number of cases for each "high burden" country. It should however be noted, that these are only the estimates for the number of cases of MDR-TB amongst those cases of pulmonary TB notified to WHO. There will in addition have been many cases of MDR amongst those cases of TB which were either not detected and/or not notified.7