Can TB kill you?
Many people are killed by TB. The mortality from TB, that is the number of deaths, is that TB is the tenth leading cause of death worldwide. TB is the leading cause from a single infectious agent, ranking above HIV/AIDS.
In 2017 an estimated 1.3 million people who were HIV negative died of TB.
In addition there were 300,000 deaths resulting from TB disease among people who were HIV positive. So there were a total of 1,600,000 TB related deaths.
An estimated 234,000 children died of TB in 2017.
In 2017 the best estimate of the proportion of people with TB who died from the disease was 16%. There is considerable variation among countries, from under 5% in a few countries to more than 20% in most countries in the WHO African Region. This illustrates large inequalities among countries in access to TB diagnosis and treatment. The number of people dying from the disease needs to fall to 10% by 2020 to reach the first milestones of the End TB strategy.
Children - deaths from TB
An estimated 234,000 children died of TB in 2017.
All countries are asked to report their TB figures to the World Health Organisation (WHO). WHO then use these notified figures to help produce estimated total TB statistics for each country, region, globally, by HIV status and by age. The WHO figures for the estimated number of deaths from TB in children in each WHO region for 2017 are given below.
Estimates are shown separately for HIV positive and HIV negative children, given that the cause of TB deaths among HIV positive people is internationally classified as being HIV.
Globally in 2017, there were an estimated 234,140 deaths from TB among children.
| WHO Region | Total | HIV negative
TB Mortality Male 0 - 14 Years |
HIV negative
TB Mortality Female 0 - 14 Years |
HIV positive
TB Mortality Male 0 - 14 Years |
HIV positive
TB Mortality Female 0-14 Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | 95,000 | 31,000 | 27,000 | 20,000 | 17,000 |
| Americas | 4,160 | 2,000 | 1,700 | 250 | 210 |
| Eastern Mediterranean | 14,490 | 7,800 | 6,500 | 110 | 90 |
| Europe | 4,830 | 2,400 | 2,300 | 70 | 60 |
| South-East Asia | 77,260 | 41,000 | 35,000 | 680 | 580 |
| Western Pacific | 38,400 | 21,000 | 17,000 | 220 | 180 |
| Global Total | 234,140 | 105,000 | 89,000 | 21,000 | 19,000 |
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Deaths in adults
There were an estimated 842,000 TB deaths among men, and 497,480 among women in 2017.
| WHO Region | Total | HIV negative TB Mortality Male > 14 Years | HIV negative TB Mortality Female > 14 Years | HIV positive TB Mortality Male > 14 Years | HIV positive TB Mortality Female > 14 Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | 571,000 | 229,000 | 127,000 | 116,000 | 99,000 |
| Americas | 19,700 | 9,600 | 4,600 | 4,100 | 1,400 |
| Eastern Mediterranean | 76,780 | 41,000 | 33,000 | 2,000 | 780 |
| Europe | 23,900 | 13,000 | 6,100 | 3,700 | 1,100 |
| South-East Asia | 589,400 | 363,000 | 199,000 | 20,000 | 7,400 |
| Western Pacific | 58,700 | 37,000 | 17,000 | 3,600 | 1,100 |
| Global Total | 1,339,480 | 692,600 | 386,700 | 149,400 | 110,780 |
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TB deaths for “high burden” countries
Of all the countries that report their TB statistics to WHO, there are 22 countries that were referred to as the TB “high burden” countries. Some people refer to these as the high risk countries. These countries had been prioritized at a global level since 2000. Between them they accounted for 83% of all estimated incident cases of TB worldwide in 2014. In addition to the main list there were two other lists, a list of high burden TB/HIV co-infection countries, and a third list of high burden MDR-TB countries.
In 2015 it was decided by WHO that the lists would be revised but that there would still be three lists. Each list would contain 30 countries. There is more about this on the TB high burden countries page.
The country with the highest estimated number of deaths is India with an estimated 410,000 deaths in HIV negative adults and 11,000 in HIV positive adults. This does though need to be considered in the context of India's very large population. There is more about TB in India. South Africa has the highest estimated number of HIV positive deaths.
The following is the estimated mortality from TB for each of the 30 countries in the main high TB burden list.
| Country | HIV negative TB Mortality | HIV positive TB Mortality | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angola | 20,000 | 7,800 | 30,000,000 |
| Bangladesh | 59,000 | 170 | 165,000,000 |
| Brazil | 5,100 | 1,900 | 209,000,000 |
| Cambodia | 3,100 | 410 | 16,000,000 |
| Central African Republic | 3,200 | 2,700 | 5,000,000 |
| China | 37,000 | 1,800 | 1,410,000,000 |
| Congo | 3,300 | 2,300 | 5,000,000 |
| DPR Korea | 16,000 | 40 | 25,000,000 |
| DP Congo | 49,000 | 7,500 | 81,000,000 |
| Ethiopia | 25,000 | 3,600 | 105,000,000 |
| India | 410,000 | 11,000 | 1,340,000,000 |
| Indonesia | 107,000 | 9,400 | 264,000,000 |
| Kenya | 25,000 | 18,000 | 50,000,000 |
| Lesotho | 1,000 | 4,600 | 2,000,000 |
| Liberia | 2,700 | 910 | 5,000,000 |
| Mozambique | 22,000 | 27,000 | 30,000,000 |
| Myanmar | 27,000 | 4,900 | 53,000,000 |
| Namibia | 750 | 800 | 3,000,000 |
| Nigeria | 120,000 | 35,000 | 191,000,000 |
| Pakistan | 54,000 | 2,200 | 197,000,000 |
| Papua New Guinea | 4,300 | 930 | 8,000,000 |
| Philippines | 26,000 | 3,800 | 105,000,000 |
| Russian Federation | 10,000 | 1,700 | 144,000,000 |
| Sierra Leone | 3,000 | 780 | 8,000,000 |
| South Africa | 22,000 | 56,000 | 57,000,000 |
| Thailand | 9,300 | 2,900 | 69,000,000 |
| UR Tanzania | 27,000 | 22,000 | 57,000,000 |
| Viet Nam | 12,000 | 840 | 96,000,000 |
| Zambia | 5,000 | 13,000 | 17,000,000 |
| Zimbabwe | 2,000 | 6,300 | 17,000,000 |
| Total for High Burden Countries | 1,110,000 | 247,000 | 4,760,000,000 |
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