The TB Portals: an Open-Access, Web-Based Platform for Global Drug-Resistant-Tuberculosis Data Sharing and Analysis

摘要

Tuberculosis (TB) continues to represent a major health problem worldwide. An estimated one-third of the world's population is living with latent TB (1). In 2015, there were an estimated 10.4 million new (incident) TB cases worldwide, of which 5.9 million (56%) were among men, 3.5 million (34%) were among women, and 1.0 million (10%) were among children. People living with HIV accounted for 1.2 million (11%) of all new TB cases (2). As one of the world's leading threats, TB was responsible for an estimated 1.4 million deaths in 2015 (2). With slightly fewer deaths than those caused by HIV, TB is the second leading cause of death by an infectious disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) Stop TB Strategy (3) and the more recent End TB Strategy (4) have significantly decreased overall TB deaths by targeting the top TB-burdened countries. Although the TB mortality rate declined by 22% between 2000 and 2015 (2), multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is rising as an imminent global health threat. In 2015, there were an estimated 250,000 deaths from MDR-TB, including rifampin-resistant TB, and it is projected that MDR-TB and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) could become responsible for approximately 6 to 33% and almost 10% of all TB cases, respectively, by 2040 in four high-burden countries (India, the Philippines, Russia, and South Africa) (5). Even more, a larger proportion of incident MDR-TB cases will be caused by person-to-person transmission rather than acquired resistance (5). These disconcerting projections emphasize the growing global public health problem of MDR-TB. It is critical to directly address this problem and find easier and less expensive solutions to treat and eventually eradicate drug-resistant TB (DR-TB).