The World Health Organization says domestic funding for tuberculosis increased by 14 per cent to $5.6 billion between 2024 and 2025. The rise helped sustain essential services despite declining international financing. The Global Tuberculosis Report 2026 estimates that 10.6 million people developed TB in 2025 and 1.1 million died. The disease remains the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. TB deaths have declined by 35 per cent since 2015, meeting the first mortality milestone of the End TB Strategy five years behind schedule.
Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus said the continued decline was encouraging. He warned that more than one million people still die annually from a preventable and treatable disease. Only 8.4 million of the estimated 10.6 million people who developed TB were diagnosed. About 2.2 million remain undiagnosed or unreported. Only 42 per cent of the estimated 370,000 people who developed rifampicin-resistant TB received treatment. Global research investment stood at $1.2 billion in 2023, less than one-quarter of the $5 billion annual target for 2027.
From a Nigerian vantage point, the numbers matter directly. Nigeria is among the 30 countries that account for 88 per cent of global TB cases. The country carries one of the world’s heaviest burdens. Domestic funding increases are welcome. They are also fragile. When governments face fiscal pressure, TB programmes are often the first to lose money because the disease is slow and its victims are poor. The winners are patients who gain treatment; governments that increased domestic funding; and the WHO, which gains evidence for advocacy. The losers are the 2.2 million undiagnosed people; drug-resistant patients who cannot access treatment; and research programmes facing funding gaps.
Winners: TB patients; governments increasing domestic funding; the WHO.
Losers: Undiagnosed patients; drug-resistant patients; research programmes.
Bottom Line: A 14 per cent funding rise is progress. Nigeria cannot close its TB gap while two million people worldwide remain undiagnosed.