In 1993 The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared tuberculosis a global emergency - TB is one of the top 3 killer diseases worldwide – along with HIV and Malaria.

There is more TB in the world today than at any other time in history. According to the World Health Organisation, 2 billion people (1/3 of the world's population), are infected with the tuberculosis bacterium. About one in ten of those infected will develop the disease. TB infection is currently spreading at the rate of one person per second. The disease kills more young people and adults than any other infectious disease and is the world's biggest killer of women. Each year, an estimated eight million to 10 million people contract the disease and two to three million people die from it.

TB has been on the rise since the 1980s, with its spread concentrated in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Much of TB's resurgence is directly connected to the HIV/AIDS pandemic -- especially in Africa, where two-thirds of those living with HIV also carry TB.  Worldwide, an estimated one-third of the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS are co-infected with TB, and up to thirty-five million people worldwide could die of TB over the next two decades unless greater action is taken to treat and prevent the disease.