Overview
- Global TB cases hit a record high in 2024, according to the World Health Organization, reversing decades of decline.
- Across Europe, a joint WHO and ECDC report says health systems missed about one in five people with TB and nearly 23 percent of new cases involved drug‑resistant strains, far above the 3.2 percent global average.
- In the United States, CDC data show a steady rise since 2021 with a provisional 10,260 cases in 2025, including 967 in New York and a 2024 Kansas outbreak with 68 active and 91 latent infections.
- Treatment remains long and harsh, often six to nine months of multiple antibiotics, which drives drop‑outs and resistance; the CDC counted 589 U.S. cases resistant to at least one first‑line drug in 2023.
- Experts point to COVID‑era care gaps, crowded living conditions, and recent cuts to U.S. global health funding, with one analysis projecting millions more pediatric TB cases and hundreds of thousands of child deaths if support falls further.