Pakistan among top five countries contributing 6.3pc of global TB cases: WHO

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recorded an estimated 670,000 tuberculosis cases in 2024, accounting for 6.3 percent of the global TB burden, the World Health Organisation’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2025 has revealed.

The new figures place Pakistan among the top five countries driving the worldwide TB epidemic alongside India, Indonesia, the Philippines and China.

The report states that 10.7 million people developed TB across the world last year and 1.23 million died from the disease. WHO says TB continues to be one of the deadliest infectious killers despite being preventable and treatable.

Pakistan remains the largest contributor to TB in the entire Eastern Mediterranean Region which reported 8.6 percent of global cases. WHO notes that Pakistan alone represents the biggest share of this regional total and continues to influence regional and global trends.

The South East Asia Region reported the highest number of TB patients with 34 percent of the global burden, followed by the Western Pacific with 27 percent and Africa with 25 percent. Experts say Pakistan’s position among high burden countries makes it a critical country for any global progress towards ending TB.

The report confirms a small decline in global TB cases of nearly 2 percent between 2023 and 2024 and a 3 percent reduction in deaths. WHO warns these improvements are still far below the End TB targets for 2025 and 2030. Pakistan continues to face one of the largest gaps between estimated TB cases and people actually diagnosed and reported. Millions remain untested due to poverty, stigma, weak surveillance and limited access to rapid testing in many districts.

Drug resistant TB remains a serious concern for Pakistan, which is listed among the high burden countries for multidrug and rifampicin resistant TB. Globally, about 390000 people developed drug resistant TB last year but less than half of them started treatment, raising fears of wider community spread in countries with weak detection systems. The report highlights that poverty, undernutrition, overcrowding and diabetes continue to fuel TB transmission in Pakistan. These risk factors are particularly common in urban informal settlements, rural districts and among marginalised communities. WHO acknowledges that Pakistan has expanded TB preventive treatment for close contacts of infectious patients and for people living with HIV. Officials say preventive treatment has increased in the Eastern Mediterranean Region mainly due to Pakistan’s reporting but the scale up remains far behind what is needed to control transmission. Global treatment success rates for drug susceptible TB remain high at around 88 percent while outcomes for drug resistant TB have improved to 71 percent. Pakistan reports similar outcomes for patients who complete treatment through supervised programmes.

The report warns that global TB funding remains dangerously low with only 5.9 billion dollars available in 2024 against an annual requirement of 22 billion dollars. Pakistan relies heavily on international support for diagnostics, community outreach and drug resistant TB treatment and any reduction in donor funding could slow progress sharply.

WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom said the world is making progress but is still losing more than a million lives a year to a treatable disease. He called for stronger commitments from high burden countries including Pakistan to shorten the path to TB elimination.

For Pakistan, the Global Tuberculosis Report 2025 indicates that the epidemic remains deeply entrenched and will continue to grow unless the country expands testing, reduces poverty linked risks and secures reliable long term funding for TB services.