At a glance
- What you need to know about tuberculosis (TB), including global statistics.
- The fact sheet also shares details on how CDC is preventing, finding, and curing TB around the world.
508 text
Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading infectious disease killer worldwide, claiming approximately 1.2 million lives each year. CDC is at the forefront of the global response to TB, supporting countries to end the threat of TB to save lives abroad and in the U.S.
- An estimated 2 billion people are infected with TB worldwide (nearly 1/4 of the world's population).
- 10.7 million people became ill with TB disease in 2024. Of those, 1.2 million (11%) were children.
TB spreads from person to person and can move across borders with serious health and financial impacts. In the U.S., treating a single case of TB can cost anywhere from $20,000 to up to $500,000 for the most drug-resistant strains. Responding to TB globally ensures a safer America and a safer world.
What is driving the continued spread of TB?
Missed TB
Each year, around 25% of people who become ill with TB remain undiagnosed and untreated. Untreated people can infect 10 to 15 additional people per year — and 10% of those infected go on to develop active TB in their lifetimes.
Health care system gaps
Limited testing, gaps in coverage of screening and preventive treatment, interruptions in sample transportation and supply chains, and shortages of trained healthcare personal can lead to delays in diagnosis and treatment, which further fuel transmission and emergence of drug resistance.
HIV-associated TB
TB is the #1 cause of death among people living with HIV (PLHIV), whose weakened immune system makes them more susceptible to TB disease.
Drug resistant TB
TB has grown resistant to the best available drugs. Drug resistant TB (DR TB) is deadlier, costlier, and harder to treat. It is now found in every country, with 390,000 new cases of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and rifampicin-resistant TB (RR TB) in 2024.
Addressing global TB saves lives, delivers cost-savings, and strengthens health systems.
- More than 79 million lives have been saved since the year 2000 due to global efforts to combat TB.
- Over 11 million TB cases and 2.1 million TB-related deaths among PLHIV were prevented from 2003 through 2024, due to efforts from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
- TB response efforts will yield $40 in savings for every $1 invested by 2050.
- TB efforts have strengthened labs, surveillance, infection prevention and control (IPC), and workforce capacity that have proven critical against other disease threats.
CDC's efforts
CDC is at the forefront of scientific excellence, innovation, and operational expertise, supporting countries to end TB as a global public health threat.
CDC works with Ministries of Health (MOHs) in 42 countries with a high burden of TB to prevent, diagnose, and treat TB disease, and enhance global TB response efforts. Through a unique combination of scientific expertise and on-the-ground implementation, CDC is accelerating countries’ progress towards global TB elimination.
Diagnose
- Expanding access to better screening, diagnostics, and contact tracing.
- Providing training and technical support to scale use of new and faster diagnostic tools.
- Transforming the approach to diagnosing TB among children, PLHIV and other populations at-risk of TB.
Treat
- Working with MOHs to implement high-quality TB programs and services designed with data to rapidly adjust to operational and contextual challenges.
- Working with MOHs to strengthen disease surveillance systems critical for finding and curing TB, as well as emerging drug resistance.
Prevent
- Identifying areas with a higher prevalence of TB disease, to target screening efforts.
- Strengthening IPC programs in health facilities and communities.
- Addressing HIV-associated TB by providing antiretroviral treatment, TB screening, and TB preventive treatment (TPT) for PLHIV.
Sustain
- Developing and strengthening surveillance and laboratory systems.
- Expanding workforce and research capacity through guidelines, mentorship, and training programs.
- Strengthening programs through operational research, implementation, and evaluation.
CDC's key accomplishments and programs
Building on PEPFAR’s platform, CDC and partners have supported over 9 million PLHIV to complete TPT. In 2024 alone, CDC supported TB screenings for over 10.4 million PLHIV and helped over 950,000 PLHIV complete TPT.
CDC is scaling up novel approaches to diagnosing TB in children by working with MOHs and partners to strengthen clinical and microbiological TB diagnosis among this population. In collaboration with MOHs, CDC developed an IPC toolkit and implemented it in PEPFAR-supported facilities across 18 countries in Africa, Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean.
CDC and partners are driving progress against DR TB by intensifying efforts to find missing cases, boost laboratory capacity, and strengthen IPC measures.
Read about some of these efforts here:
Looking towards the future
TB anywhere is TB everywhere. A safer and stronger America means that this deadly, airborne threat is identified, treated, and stopped from spreading. This is possible through:
- Scaling up the use of effective tools and strategies.
- Developing new approaches including less toxic drugs and more effective diagnostics.
- Strengthening surveillance systems, lab capacity and TB IPC measures.
- Developing an effective TB vaccine.
- Continuing to ensure efficient use of every dollar and supporting countries to self-sustain their TB responses.
This page was last updated on this date. Updates may include minor edits, image changes, or other modifications to page content.
The information on this page was last reviewed by subject matter experts to ensure accuracy.
- v