Today is World Tuberculosis Day. The whole world observes 24th March as World TB Day. To raise awareness about the deadliest disease TB the World Health Organization observes this day every year.
The date marks the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes TB, which opened the way towards diagnosing and curing this disease. Before that the illness was originally known in England and France as “king’s evil”, and it was widely believed that persons affected could heal after a royal touch.
TB remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers. In 2020 10 billion people were infected and 1.5 million died.
The theme of World TB Day 2022 – ‘Invest to End TB. Save Lives.’ –conveys the urgent need to invest resources to ramp up the fight against TB and achieve the commitments to end TB made by global leaders.
