Every year on March 24th, World Tuberculosis Day seeks to build public awareness about the global epidemic of tuberculosis. The observance also aims to increase efforts to eliminate the deadly disease.
TB remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers. Each day, nearly 4000 lose their lives to TB and close to 28,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. Global efforts to combat TB have saved an estimated 63 million lives since the year 2000.
In 1982, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease proposed the observance, World TB Day on March 24th. The date marked the one-hundredth anniversary of Dr. Robert Koch’s discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes the disease. Over a decade later, the WHO’s World Health Assembly and the United Nations recognized World Tuberculosis Day. By 1998, nearly 200 organizations participated in the day.
The theme of World TB Day 2021 - ‘The Clock is Ticking’ –conveys the sense that the world is running out of time to act on the commitments to end TB made by global leaders.
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