Canadian Tuberculosis Standards 6th Edition - 2007

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one-third of the world population is infected with an estimated 8.9 million incident cases and over 15 million prevalent active cases of TB disease. An estimated 1.7 million deaths were attributable to the disease. Approximately 95% of incident cases reported every year occur in the developing world. Th e spread of the human immunodefi ciency virus (HIV), particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and the emergence of drug-resistant strains threaten to make some cases incurable. No doubt, the original declaration of WHO in 1993 that TB is a “global emergency” remains true today.