WHO: TB Now Kills as Many People as AIDS

The number of tuberculosis cases has fallen by 18 percent since 2000, but the completely curable infection now kills as least as many every year as the AIDS virus, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, NBC News reported.

TB killed 1.5 million people in 2014, WHO said — about the same as in 2013. The total HIV death toll in 2014 was estimated at 1.2 million, but that number included 400,000 TB deaths among HIV-positive people. Because estimates for deaths from HIV and TB both include the same 400,000 people, it is difficult to say which infection killed more people.

The reason? Countries are not spending enough money to treat people infected with the highly infectious disease, which takes weeks or months of daily antibiotics to eradicate.

Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of WHO's Global TB Program says it is "unacceptable in an era when you can diagnose and cure nearly every person with TB."

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