World Tuberculosis Day 2012: Stop TB in my lifetime!

On the occasion of Dr Robert Koch's announcement of his discovery of the cause of tuberculosis, 24 March 1882, the world commemorates the World Tuberculosis Day each year to raise awareness of the problem of TB and measures to address them.

World TB Day 2012 is focusing on tuberculosis in children: Stop TB in my lifetime!

In their lifetimes, today’s children should expect to see a world where no one gets sick with TB. To mark World TB Day, 24 March 2012, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and WHO/Europe launch their joint report, “Tuberculosis surveillance and monitoring in Europe 2012”. The report shows that TB in children is still a great concern for the Region: in 2010, countries reported about 10 000 cases in people under 15 years. In addition, children represented more than 5% of all TB cases in 20 countries, and more than half of these cases were in children aged under 5 in 10 countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland.

The report provides an overview of progress on TB control. It introduces monitoring frameworks for following up the Berlin Declaration on Tuberculosis and the Consolidated Action Plan to Prevent and Combat Multidrug- and Extensively Drug-resistant Tuberculosis (M/XDR-TB) in the WHO European Region 2011–2015, and presents the measures for 12 indicators linked to the follow-up of the Framework Action Plan to Fight Tuberculosis in the European Union (EU). In 2010, countries reported 309 648 new TB cases, a decline of 2.6% from 2009. This confirmed the general decrease in reported cases over the previous five years across the Region. The rising numbers of M/XDR-TB cases, however, pose a serious threat to work to eliminate TB, and highlight the importance of early detection and adequate treatment.