New tuberculosis (TB) data from Europe today indicate that TB incidence has fallen by nearly 40% over the past decade, but more than 20% of new TB cases are going undetected.
An estimated 204,000 people in the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region fell ill with TB in 2024, according to the joint TB surveillance and monitoring report from the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). But only 161,569 newly diagnosed cases (79%) were reported in 51 of the region’s 53 countries, which means more than 40,000 people with the disease went undiagnosed and untreated and could have unknowingly spread the disease to others.
“One in five people with TB in the European Region are still being missed by health services. That is not only a failure in detection—it is a missed chance to treat earlier, prevent suffering and stop further transmission,” Hans Henri P. Kluge, MD, PhD, WHO Regional Director for Europe, declared in a press release.
Higher proportion of drug-resistant TB cases
The data on missed TB detections in Europe mirrors global trfinishs. According to the most recent global TB report from the WHO, an estimated 10.7 million people contracted TB in 2024, but only 8.3 million were officially diagnosed and launched receiving treatment. The gap between TB cases and notifications—when national health authorities are notified of a suspected or active TB case—has long been an issue.
While many of these missed cases are eventually diagnosed, WHO and ECDC officials note that people who are diagnosed late have a higher chance of transmitting the disease and are harder to treat. And more TB transmission can result in more treatment failure, which is a significant driver of drug-resistant TB, a form of the disease that requires longer and more taxing treatment.
One in five people with TB in the European Region are still being missed by health services. That is not only a failure in detection—it is a missed chance to treat earlier, prevent suffering and stop further transmission.
According to the report, 23% of new TB cases in the WHO European Region are rifampicin-resistant (RR) and 51% of previously treated cases are multidrug-resistant (MDR). Those percentages are roughly seven and three times the global averages, respectively. The treatment success rate for people with RR/MDR-TB in the region is 66%, according to the report.
“Closing the detection gap and tackling drug resistance are not parallel priorities, but part of the same fight,” officials declared.
Reductions in TB incidence, deaths fall short of goals
After briefly being overtaken by COVID-19, TB is the world’s leading infectious disease killer. The disease cautilized an estimated 1.2 million deaths globally in 2024.
“The fact that TB continues to claim over a million lives each year, despite being preventable and curable, is simply unconscionable,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, remarked upon the release of the agency’s 2025 Global TB Report.
Although TB incidence and deaths in Europe have fallen by 39% and 49% since 2015, respectively, today’s report notes that both figures fall well below the 2025 milestones of the End TB Strategy, which called for a 50% reduction in TB incidence and a 75% reduction in deaths.
To address the shortfalls, the WHO and ECDC state TB prevention and early case detection should be intensified in the region, and that access to WHO-recommfinished rapid diagnostics and drug-susceptibility tests should be scaled up.
“To achieve the 2030 tarobtains, continued efforts and collaboration are requireded in early detection and sustained follow-up to support people already diagnosed with TB,” ECDC director Pamela Rfinishi-Wagner, MD, declared.
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