As Ethiopia Moves toward Tuberculosis Elimination, Success Requires Higher Investment

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced that tuberculosis (TB) was the most common global cause of infectious disease deaths in 2014, when more than 9 million TB cases and 1.5 million TB deaths occurred. Based on recognition of the urgent need to prevent these annual global health and economic burdens, the Stop TB Partnership and the WHO recently released the details of a new 2016–2020 End TB Strategy, described as a paradigm shift in the approach to TB control, that includes among its 2025 targets a rate of TB case detection and treatment of 90 percent, including in high-risk populations, and a cure rate of 90 percent of detected TB cases. This global TB control picture provides an important background context to the CSIS team’s visit to Ethiopia.