MORE than eight million people were diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) last year, according to a damning World Health Organisation (WHO) report.

This is the highest number recorded since the United Nations health agency began keeping track of the illness.

Around 1.25 million people died of TB last year, says the report published on Tuesday, adding that it has probably returned to being the world’s most deadly infectious disease after being replaced by Covid-19 during the pandemic. 

Last year’s deaths represent almost double the number of people killed by HIV in 2023.

The WHO said TB continues to mostly affect people in south-east Asia, Africa and the western Pacific. India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Pakistan account for more than half of the world’s cases.

“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 director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“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.”

TB deaths worldwide continue to fall, however, and the number of people being infected is beginning to stabilise. The UN agency noted that, of the 400,000 people estimated to have drug-resistant TB last year, fewer than half were diagnosed and treated.

The disease is caused by airborne bacteria that mostly affect the lungs. Roughly a quarter of the global population is estimated to have TB, but only about 5 to 10 per cent develop symptoms.

Advocacy groups, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), have long called for US company Cepheid, which produces TB tests used in poorer countries, to make them available for $5 each (around £3.80) to increase availability. 

Earlier this month, MSF and 150 global health partners sent Cepheid an open letter calling on the firm to “prioritise people’s lives” and take urgent action to help make TB testing more widespread around the world.