Domestic funding for tuberculosis rose 14% to $5.6 billion in 2025, helping offset declining international support, as WHO warns that millions remain undiagnosed and treatment gaps persist.
By Bunmi Yekini
The number of people dying from tuberculosis (TB) globally has fallen by 35% since 2015, but the disease still claimed an estimated 1.1 million lives in 2025, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
An estimated 10.6 million people developed TB last year, highlighting the continuing burden of a disease that remains the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent.
The findings are contained in the WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2026, released on November 12, which says global efforts to combat the disease are making progress, although the pace remains insufficient to meet international targets.
The report said increased domestic investment helped sustain TB control programmes amid declining international funding, with domestic financing rising by 14% to $5.6 billion between 2024 and 2025.
The increase partly offset a decline in international financing of a similar scale, underscoring the growing importance of government funding in maintaining essential TB services.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the decline in cases and deaths was encouraging, particularly given the funding challenges confronting many countries.
“Many governments have dug deeper into their own budgets to protect the gains they have made,” Tedros said.
However, he warned that more than one million people continued to die annually from a preventable and treatable disease.
“We urge countries and partners to urgently expand access to TB services, protect essential funding and accelerate the development of new tools to end this epidemic,” he said.
According to the report, TB deaths have declined by 35% since 2015, while treatment has saved an estimated 86 million lives since 2000.
This means the world has achieved the first mortality milestone of WHO’s End TB Strategy, although five years behind the 2025 deadline.
Progress in reducing new infections has been slower. The global TB incidence rate declined by 14% between 2015 and 2025, falling short of the strategy’s target of a 50% reduction by 2025.
The burden also remains concentrated in a relatively small number of countries, with 30 countries accounting for 88% of all people who developed TB in 2025.
The report highlighted significant regional differences in progress. Between 2015 and 2025, TB incidence declined by 42% in the WHO European Region and 30% in the African Region.
The reductions were smaller in South-East Asia, at 18%, and the Eastern Mediterranean, at 6.6%, while the Western Pacific recorded no net change.
In the Americas, TB incidence increased for the fifth consecutive year in 2025, reaching 13% above its 2015 level.
WHO attributed the differences to variations in TB risk factors, health system capacity, access to diagnosis and treatment, and sustained investment in disease control.
Despite progress, significant gaps remain in identifying and treating people with the disease.
Of the estimated 10.6 million people who developed TB in 2025, only 8.4 million were diagnosed, leaving approximately 2.2 million either undiagnosed or unreported.
The report also found that only 59% of newly diagnosed patients were tested using a WHO-recommended rapid diagnostic test, considerably below the 100% target set for 2027.
Drug-resistant TB remains another major challenge.
An estimated 370,000 people developed rifampicin-resistant TB in 2025, but only 42% received treatment.
However, uptake of the WHO-recommended six-month treatment regimen among those receiving care increased from 18% in 2024 to 42% in 2025.
The report also raised concerns about inadequate investment in TB research, which it said was essential to developing more effective vaccines, diagnostic tools and treatments.
Funding for TB research stood at $1.2 billion in 2023, less than a quarter of the $5 billion annual investment target set for 2027.
WHO called on governments and international partners to strengthen political commitment, protect existing funding and increase sustainable domestic investment in TB prevention and treatment.
It also urged countries to expand access to rapid diagnosis and effective treatment while accelerating research and development of new tools.
The organisation warned that substantially faster progress would be required to put the world back on track towards ending the TB epidemic.