On World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, international lung health organizations advise ‘we must find and treat everyone with TB, to end TB'
March 23, 2023
Glenview, IL – In support of World Tuberculosis (TB) Day 24 March, the Forum of
International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), of which the American College
of Chest Physicians (CHEST) is a founding member, is determined to break
the chain of TB transmission.
In 2021,
1.2 million children fell ill with TB globally. On World TB Day, FIRS members are focusing on child TB, as children with
TB are most likely to have been recently infected by an undiagnosed and
untreated adult with infectious TB in their household or community. This is
not right.
The key to breaking the chain of transmission and ending TB is to find and
treat everyone in the community with TB. This simple approach will not only
benefit those people who are found and treated but also protects others
from ever being infected with TB.
Despite TB being curable, progress is moving slowly. Over the last decade,
TB deaths fell by only 2% per year. Deaths increased during the COVID-19
pandemic, as experts, equipment and money were diverted elsewhere. TB is
expected to kill more people in low- and middle-income countries in 2023
than COVID-19.
There remains a large global gap between the estimated number of people who
fell ill with TB and the number of people newly diagnosed, with 4.2 million
people not diagnosed with the disease or not officially reported to
national authorities in 2021,
up from 3.2 million in 2019.
For toolkits and guidelines surrounding the treatment and management of TB,
visit the FIRS website:
https://www.firsnet.org/resources/guidelines.
For more on the impact of TB and other respiratory diseases, see the
Global Impact of Respiratory Disease Report 
.
About the American College of Chest Physicians
The American College of Chest Physicians® (CHEST) is the global
leader in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of chest diseases. Its
mission is to champion advanced clinical practice, education, communication
and research in chest medicine. It serves as an essential connection to
clinical knowledge and resources for its 19,000+ members from around the
world who provide patient care in pulmonary, critical care and sleep
medicine. For information about the American College of Chest Physicians,
and its flagship journal CHEST®, visit chestnet.org.
About the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS)
The Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) is an organisation
comprised of the world's leading international respiratory societies
working together to improve lung health globally: American College of Chest
Physicians (CHEST), American Thoracic Society (ATS), Asian Pacific Society
of Respirology (APSR), Asociación Latino Americana De Tórax (ALAT),
European Respiratory Society (ERS), International Union Against
Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (The Union), Pan African Thoracic Society
(PATS), Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), and the Global Initiative for
Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD).
The goal of FIRS is to unify and enhance efforts to improve lung health
through the combined work of its more than 70,000 members globally.
For more information about FIRS, please contact Fiona Salter fional.salter@firsnet.org