Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. In 2024, an estimated 10.7 million people fell ill with TB, and 1.23 million people died – including 150,000 people living with HIV – reaffirming TB as the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent globally.

Among all people who developed TB in 2024, 54% were men, 35% were women, and 11% were children, mirroring persistent gender and age disparities. Despite its immense global toll, TB is preventable and curable, particularly with the increasing access to WHO-recommended rapid diagnostics, shorter and more effective treatment regimens, and expanded preventive therapies.

As part of the global effort to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3, which calls for ending the epidemics of HIV, TB, and malaria, World Vision remains committed to identifying, preventing, and treating TB in the communities we serve, especially among vulnerable, marginalised, and hard-to-reach populations.

The scale of the epidemic far exceeds what any single organisation can address alone. World Vision therefore works in close partnership with national governments, the World Health Organization, the Global Fund, civil society, technical agencies, and local communities to accelerate progress toward ending TB by 2030.

World Vision's Approach

World Vision’s TB programming focuses on community systems strengthening, advocacy, and social mobilisation to improve early case-finding, timely diagnosis, treatment initiation, adherence support, and stigma reduction. Core interventions include:

• Community-based TB screening and contact tracing conducted by trained volunteers, faith leaders, and TB survivor networks.
• Health system capacity building, including training of front-line health workers, supporting adoption of digital tools, and promoting data use for decision-making.
• Integration of TB services within HIV, nutrition, and other community health platforms to ensure continuity of care.
• Digital and AI-enabled tools to improve diagnostic accuracy and accelerate case detection in resource-constrained or hard-to-reach settings.
• Private sector engagement, including collaboration with private hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and laboratories.
• Community empowerment and advocacy to advance TB prevention, rights-based access to care, and increased domestic financing for national TB programmes.
• Psychosocial and livelihood support for households affected by TB to strengthen treatment adherence and reduce economic vulnerability.
• Adaptive, risk-informed implementation in fragile and conflict-affected contexts to maintain continuity of essential services.