Red paper cutouts of lungs next to the letters TB.

Calling for Country-Led TB Responses: World TB Day 2026

World Tuberculosis Day 2026 emphasizes that ending the TB epidemic is still possible if countries commit to increased investment, accelerated innovation and action, and multisectoral collaboration.

According to the latest data from the Global Tuberculosis (TB) Report, the world has seen sustained global progress addressing TB. In the period from 2015 to 2024, more than 100 countries achieved at least a 20 percent reduction in the incidence of TB, while 65 countries achieved reductions of 35 percent or more in TB-related deaths. However, this progress is currently being threatened because of severe global health funding cuts from the U.S. and other donor countries.

This World TB Day, celebrated annually on March 24, the World Health Organization (WHO) is using the theme “Yes! We can end TB! Led by Countries. Powered by People.” This message emphasizes that ending the TB epidemic is still possible, even amid current challenges if countries commit to increased investment, accelerated innovation and action, and multisectoral collaboration. 

TB is a problem with a massive global scale—it’s estimated that about one fourth of the global population has been infected with the bacteria that causes TB. More than 80 percent of cases and deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, though there have been a number of high-visibility TB outbreaks in high-income countries over the past few years, including in the United States.

The large majority of people who are infected with TB have a latent infection, meaning they do not have symptoms and are not contagious. However, every year about 5–10 percent of those people will develop an active infection and fall ill with TB—which comes out to more than 10 million people annually. In 2024, an estimated 10.7 million people fell ill with TB, and 1.23 million people died from TB. TB is the world’s top infectious killer.

TB spreads through the air when a patient with an active TB infection coughs or sneezes. If another person breathes in those aerosols, they may become infected with the TB bacteria. TB is often associated with poverty because people living in poverty are more likely to live together in close quarters, be exposed to air pollution, experience undernutrition, and have a harder time accessing health care—all risk factors for becoming infected and falling ill with TB. 

Investing in TB services and universal health coverage is critical to ending the TB epidemic. However, even before the 2025 aid cuts, funding for TB services and research had been stagnating and was about a quarter of global funding targets. The sudden loss of international funding, particularly from the U.S., represented a major setback. In 2024, funding from the U.S. government made up 50 percent of total international donor funding for TB, and 20 percent of total available funding for TB.

While it’s still early to determine the full human and health impacts of the 2025 cuts, preliminary data suggests the sudden loss of funds affected TB service delivery, research, community engagement, and support in a number of high-burden countries, at least temporarily. In response to the cuts, some countries have increased domestic funding for national TB programs. While this might be enough in some countries, other countries that rely more heavily on donor funding are likely to see the largest impacts in TB cases and deaths. If the decline in funding persists, global progress on TB could be at risk. One article published in PLOS Global Health projects that TB funding cuts could cause nearly 10 million additional infections and 2.2 million additional deaths by 2030 under a worst-case scenario with long-term service reduction. 

This World TB Day, the WHO is calling on countries to take the lead on national TB responses. Although the current situation is challenging, this may also be an opportunity to form new partnerships, alliances, and funding mechanisms that are more resilient and better address each country’s own specific needs. To learn more about the global TB epidemic, explore our resource pack on Global Infectious Diseases or check out the selected resources below.

Selected Resources

The Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University supports interdisciplinary education about world health through the production, curation, and dissemination of educational public goods. Our digital repository is a searchable library of reputable resources that support learning and teaching about interdisciplinary global health challenges. The repository includes both general resources, such as reports, articles, country profiles, and data, and teaching resources, such as teaching cases and lesson-based teaching packs. 

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