President Donald Trump recently yanked the United States out of the World Health Organization, the United Nations health agency, and an unprecedented wave of tuberculosis infections has struck the state of Kansas, where nearly 70 cases have been recorded.
TB is still common, but governments around the world are not adequately funding efforts to stop the deadly illness.
“The fact that TB still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the World Health Organization. “WHO urges all countries to make good on the concrete commitments they have made to expand the use of those tools and to end TB.”
In 2023, it was the leading infectious disease killer worldwide, and the United States reported 9,633 cases of TB, the highest number since 2013.
Lisa McCormick, who took nearly four of ten votes away from corrupt US Senator Bob Menendez in New Jersey’s 2018 Democratic primary, noted that Trump disbanded the National Security Council’s global health unit the first time he was in the White House.
“The Directorate of Global Health Security and Biodefense was disbanded during Trump’s first administration, and a million Americans died from coronavirus,” sain McCormick. “The Trump administration cut more than two-thirds of the U.S. public health staff working inside China before the coronavirus outbreak.”
“With TB, Marburg disease and bird flu making comebacks, this is a bad time to fire health and science experts whose job entails preventing another pandemic,” said McCormick. “Disease knows no borders, so when all humanity faces extinction, it would be a bad time for America to be alone.”
Tanzania is experiencing an outbreak of Marburg virus disease, a deadly viral hemorrhagic fever that is able to spread unchecked, in the northwestern Kagera region.
H5 bird flu is causing outbreaks in poultry and dairy cows worldwide, and in the U.S., where outbreaks began in late March 2024, and human cases are reported among agricultural workers.
“Epidemics and pandemics are a threat to all of humanity,” said McCormick. “The pathogens that put humanity at greatest risk come from about 25 virus families. Climate change is likely to produce conditions awakening another deadly viral threat.”
Warming weather or persistent changes in temperature, precipitation, humidity, and air pollution associated with climate change can promote genetic changes to the virus that influence infectivity or transmissibility, creating doubt about the accuracy of diagnostic tests, effectiveness of antiviral drugs, and efficacy of vaccines.
“Crippling the agencies that fight deadly diseases is like extending an invitation to death,” said McCormick. “Donald Trump’s stupidity can kill us all, but the political establishment is too busy raising money to stop this madness.”
A potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects the lungs, the bacteria that cause TB are spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Most people infected with the bacteria that cause tuberculosis don’t have symptoms. When symptoms do occur, they usually include cough (sometimes blood-tinged), weight loss, night sweats, and fever.
Treatment isn’t always required for those without symptoms. Patients with active symptoms will require a long course of treatment involving multiple antibiotics.
Global funding for TB prevention and care decreased further in 2023 and remains far below necessary levels.
Only $5.7 billion of the $22 billion annual budget was available in 2023, equivalent to funding only 26% of the global target.
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