Deadly disease overtakes COVID-19 as leading global infectious killer

Tuberculosis (TB) has overtaken COVID-19 as the world's most deadly infectious disease, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

About 10.8 million people fell ill with the disease in 2023, while 1.25 million died.

The disease is spread through the air when a person with the disease coughs, sneezes or speaks.

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TB is currently treated with antibiotics that were developed in the 1950s and 1960s.

However, researchers have noted that some of the bacteria causing the disease have mutated, leading to antimicrobial resistance.

The WHO has listed antimicrobial resistance as one of the top global public health and development threats.

TB primarily affects the lungs, with the bacteria being spread when an infected person coughs, sneezes or even sings.

"This can put tiny droplets with the bacteria into the air. Another person can then breathe in the droplets, and the bacteria enter the lungs where they can cause disease," the WHO said.

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The University of Queensland's Professor Antje Blumenthal said a quarter of the population carries the bacteria responsible for causing TB.

But not everyone who is infected with TB bacteria will develop TB disease," Blumenthal said.

"The bacteria have been with us for thousands of years and they are really well adapted to survive and thrive in our bodies," she said.

"TB treatment currently requires several months of a cocktail of antibiotics and can take more than a year to complete.

"What is needed is new knowledge and strategies that will help us develop treatments that act faster and have less side effects. This can be new antibiotics but also might be strategies to help the body's immune response better control the bacteria. "

Blumenthal hoped that, one day, these new treatments could be combined with antibiotics to make TB treatment faster and more effective.

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