Tuberculosis has rebounded after years of decline, killing an estimated 1.6 million people in 2021, up 14 percent in two years, latest World Health Organization figures showed Thursday.

TB, which was overtaken by Covid-19 in the course of the worst of the pandemic because the world’s biggest infectious killer, claimed an estimated 1.5 million lives in 2020 and 1.4 million in 2019.

And the WHO blamed the resurgence of the disease on the pandemic, saying the crisis had had an enormous and ongoing impact on access to diagnosis and treatment.

“Globally, the annual estimated variety of deaths from TB fell between 2005 and 2019, however the estimates for 2020 and 2021 suggest that this trend has been reversed,” the UN’s health agency said in its annual Global TB report.

A lot of the estimated increase in TB deaths globally was accounted for by 4 countries: India, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

The report said it was possible that TB would “once more be the leading reason for death worldwide from a single infectious agent, replacing Covid-19”.

But Mel Spigelman, president of the non-profit TB Alliance, told AFP last week that that had already happened, comparing the annual TB death rate to the most recent Covid-19 figures.

An estimated 10.6 million people fell unwell with TB in 2021 — a 4.5 percent increase on 2020, the WHO said.

“That is the primary time in a few years a rise has been reported within the number of individuals falling unwell with TB and drug resistant TB,” the WHO said.

And the incidence rate — latest cases per 100,000 population per yr — increased by 3.6 percent between 2020 and 2021, after declining by around two percent a yr for many of the last twenty years.

“The overarching finding of this report is that the Covid-19 pandemic continues to have a harmful impact on access to TB diagnosis and treatment and the burden of TB disease,” the WHO update said.

“Progress made within the years as much as 2019 has slowed, stalled or reversed, and global TB targets are astray.

“Intensified efforts backed by increased funding are urgently required to mitigate and reverse the negative impacts of the pandemic on TB.”

Tuberculosis is brought on by a bacteria that the majority often affects the lungs. Like Covid, it’s transmitted via the air by infected people, for instance by coughing. It’s preventable and curable.

The WHO said conflicts all over the world, the worldwide energy crisis and associated risks to food security were more likely to worsen the situation further.

“The highest priority is to revive access to and provision of essential TB services, in order that levels of TB case detection and treatment can get better to not less than 2019 levels,” the report said.

Eight countries accounted for greater than two thirds of the worldwide total of cases: India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that with solidarity, determination, innovation and the equitable use of tools, we are able to overcome severe health threats,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“Let’s apply those lessons to tuberculosis. It’s time to put a stop to this long-time killer. Working together, we are able to end TB.”