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World Tuberculosis Day 2025: A Call to Action

Mar 25, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor,

Guyana stands with the global community in observing World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, marking 143 years since Dr. Robert Koch’s groundbreaking discovery of the TB bacillus.

His work paved the way for diagnosing, treating, and curing TB. Yet, despite being preventable and curable, TB remains a major global health threat.

According to the 2024 WHO Global Tuberculosis Report, an estimated 10.8 million people worldwide developed TB last year, and 1.25 million lives were lost, including 161,000 among those living with HIV. Every day, nearly 3,500 people die, and 30,000 fall ill from a disease that we have the tools to defeat.

This year’s theme— “Yes! We Can End TB: Commit, Invest, Deliver”—is a rallying cry for Guyana to strengthen its fight against drug-resistant TB. The Ministry of Health, civil society, and all stakeholders must intensify efforts to implement and monitor critical control measures, namely:

* Administrative interventions to ensure early detection and treatment,

* Environmental controls to limit TB transmission, and

  • Access to protective equipment for healthcare workers.

With $143.2 billion allocated to the health sector in 2025, we must expand universal access to TB care, strengthen prevention, treatment, and research, and address the social determinants of health that fuel TB’s spread.

Ending TB requires a) Reducing poverty, overcrowding, and malnutrition;

  1. b) Strengthening housing, healthcare, and nutrition programs, and c) Tackling tobacco, alcohol use, diabetes, and HIV, which increase TB vulnerability.

The National Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) must also expand its Directly Observed Treatment (DOT) services to all ten regions, with a strong focus on Regions 4 and 3, where most cases occur.  The Hinterland areas need greater coordination and ownership from all stakeholders to improve TB control.

TB is an airborne infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It spreads when an infected person coughs, sneezes, speaks, or sings, releasing bacteria into the air. Symptoms include persistent cough (over two weeks), chest pain, fever, night sweats, weight loss, and fatigue. Anyone experiencing these symptoms or exposed to TB should seek care at one of 18 Chest Clinics across Guyana or call the National Tuberculosis Programme at 225-7290/227-0592/231-8270. The good news: TB treatment is now shorter—just 4 to 6 months, fully oral, and highly effective.

On World Tuberculosis Day, let us renew our commitment to ending TB. This is everybody’s business. Together, we can make it happen!

Sincerely

Dr. Karen Francis-Cummings

Shadow Minister of Health

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