Experts attending the 5th SA Tuberculosis Conference in Durban have warned that 2018 is the last chance to fight the global disease successfully.
The disease is one of the world’s leading killer and claimed 1.7 million lives in 2016.
Two billion people – close to a third of the world’s population – are infected with tuberculosis (TB).
For 25 years tuberculosis has remained a global emergency, declared as such by the World Health Organisation in 1993.
South Africa is one of the countries worst-affected. People living with HIV and Aids are more vulnerable to TB.
Now experts want governments to invest more resources in fight against the disease. For the first time ever the United Nations General Assembly will hold a High-Level Meeting on TB later this year.
Only four out of 10 people infected with TB get access to treatment worldwide. Without this life-saving medicine the disease is passed on to others.
This is the challenge South Africa is facing. However, between 2000 and 2016 diagnosis and treatment saved more than 50 million lives globally.
Researchers have also called for greater community involvement and experts agree that the international community needs to pick up the pace in tackling TB in order to attain the Sustainable Development Goals, of ending the TB epidemic by 2030.
