ECDC and the WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) recently concluded a crucial joint meeting focused on enhancing tuberculosis (TB) surveillance and monitoring across the WHO European Region.
Nearly 7,000 excess deaths from tuberculosis occurred in the WHO European Region in the three years of the pandemic from 2020 - 2022, compared to what experts had expected based on pre-2020 estimates.
ECDC and WHO/Europe have issued a statement announcing that the European Region remains a long way from meeting its End Tuberculosis Strategy targets, despite having the tools to do so.
According to the latest ECDC/WHO report on tuberculosis (TB) surveillance and monitoring in Europe, a sharp drop (24%) in reported tuberculosis cases between 2019 and 2020 was probably exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which hindered detection and reporting.
The tuberculosis (TB) burden in the WHO European Region as a whole is decreasing, and is down 19% overall for 2015–2019, according to the latest WHO/European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) report Tuberculosis surveillance and monitoring in Europe 2021 (2019 data).