Did we reach the 2005 targets for tuberculosis control?

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Infectious Disease Epidemiology
• Global Health Policy

Background:

• The World Health Assembly established 2005 targets for tuberculosis (TB) control: detecting 70% of new smear-positive cases and achieving an 85% cure rate.
• The Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course (DOTS) strategy is a key global TB control initiative.
• Monitoring progress towards these targets is crucial for effective TB elimination strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the global and regional performance of national tuberculosis control programs in 2005 against the World Health Assembly's targets.
• To assess the case detection and treatment success rates for sputum smear-positive TB cases.
• To identify regions and countries that successfully met the established TB control targets.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of data reported by national TB control programs in 199 countries for the year 2005.
• Calculation of global and regional case detection rates for new smear-positive TB cases.
• Calculation of treatment success rates for smear-positive TB patients registered in 2004.

Main Results:

• In 2005, 2.3 million new smear-positive TB cases were diagnosed globally, representing a 60% case detection rate, below the 70% target.
• The global treatment success rate for smear-positive TB patients registered in 2004 was 84%, meeting the 85% target.
• The WHO Western Pacific Region was the only region to achieve both targets (76% case detection, 91% treatment success).
• 26 countries, including China, the Philippines, and Viet Nam, met both case detection and treatment success targets.

Conclusions:

• While global TB case detection fell short of the 2005 target, treatment success rates remained high, indicating progress in managing diagnosed cases.
• The DOTS strategy has successfully diagnosed over 26 million TB patients between 1995 and 2005.
• The Global Plan to Stop TB 2006-2015 aims to build on these successes to further reduce TB incidence, prevalence, and mortality in alignment with the Millennium Development Goals.