LONDON: More than 8 million people were diagnosed with tuberculosis last year, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, the highest number recorded since the UN health agency began keeping track.
About 1.25 million people died of TB last year, the new report said, adding that TB likely returned to being the world’s top infectious disease killer after being replaced by COVID-19 during the pandemic. The deaths are almost double the number of people killed by HIV in 2023.
WHO said TB continues to mostly affect people in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Western Pacific; India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Pakistan account for more than half of the world’s cases.
“The fact that TB still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
TB deaths continue to fall globally, however, and the number of people being newly infected is beginning to stabilize. The agency noted that of the 400,000 people estimated to have drug-resistant TB last year, fewer than half were diagnosed and treated.
Tuberculosis is caused by airborne bacteria that mostly affects the lungs. Roughly a quarter of the global population is estimated to have TB, but only about 5–10 percent of those develop symptoms.
Advocacy groups, including Doctors Without Borders, have long called for the US company Cepheid, which produces TB tests used in poorer countries, to make them available for $5 per test to increase availability. Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders and 150 global health partners sent Cepheid an open letter calling on them to “prioritize people’s lives” and to urgently help make TB testing more widespread globally.
Tuberculosis infected 8 million people last year, the most WHO has ever tracked
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Tuberculosis infected 8 million people last year, the most WHO has ever tracked
- WHO says TB continues to mostly affect people in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Western Pacific
Russian police and National Guard will stay in Ukraine’s Donbas postwar, a Kremlin official says
- The remarks by Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov underscore Moscow’s ambition to maintain its presence in Donbas post-war
- Ukraine is likely to reject such a stance as US-led negotiations drag on
KYIV: A senior Kremlin official said Friday that Russian police and National Guard will stay on in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and oversee the industry-rich region, even if a peace settlement ends Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.
The remarks by Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov underscore Moscow’s ambition to maintain its presence in Donbas post-war. Ukraine is likely to reject such a stance as US-led negotiations drag on.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian units have recaptured several settlements and neighborhoods near the city of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, following a monthslong operation aimed at reversing Russian advances there.
Kupiansk has in recent months been one of the most closely contested sectors of the around 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, and the claimed Ukrainian progress of around 40 sq. km. (15 sq. miles) would be a setback for Russia.
Less than two months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukrainian troops in Kupiansk were surrounded and offered to negotiate their surrender. He said a media visit to the area would prove it. Putin has sought to portray Russia as negotiating from a position of strength in the war.
Ukrainian weapons
Ukraine also has developed its long-range strike capabilities using domestically produced weapons to disrupt Russia’s war machine.
Its Special Operations Forces, or SSO, said Friday that an operation in the Caspian Sea struck two Russian vessels carrying military equipment and arms.
The ships named Kompozitor Rakhmaninov and Askar-Saridzha are under US sanctions for transporting arms between Russia and Iran, the SSO said in a statement on social media. It didn’t say what weapons it used in its attack.
Cross-border drone strikes
A Ukrainian drone attack wounded seven people, including a child, in the Russian city of Tver, acting Gov. Vitaly Korolev said Friday. Falling drone debris struck an apartment building in the city, which lies northwest of Moscow, Korolev said.
Russia’s air defenses destroyed 90 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
Russian drones struck a residential area of Pavlohrad, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person and wounding four others, the head of the local military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging channel on Friday.
Ukraine’s southern Odesa region came under a large-scale drone attack overnight, according to regional chief Oleh Kiper. The attack damaged energy infrastructure, he said. More than 90,000 people were without electricity on Friday morning, Deputy Energy Minister Roman Andarak said.
Ukraine’s air force said that Russia launched 80 drones across the country during the night.
