Lockdown risks 1.4m extra TB deaths: study

The global lockdown caused by COVID-19 risks a "devastating" surge in tuberculosis cases, with nearly 1.4 million additional deaths from the world's biggest infectious killer by 2025, new research showed yesterday. TB, a bacterial infection that normally attacks patients' lungs, is largely treatable yet still infects an estimated 10 million people every year. In 2018, it killed around 1.5 million people, according to the World Health Organization, including more than 200,000 children. Since effective medication exists, the world's TB response is centred on testing and treating as many patients as possible. But as COVID-19 forces governments to place populations on lockdown, new disease models showed that social distancing could lead to a disastrous rebound in TB infections -- the effects of which are set to persist for years.