The number of deaths from tuberculosis is now catching up with that of HIV/AIDS.
Although TB is a curable disease, it is now ranked as one of the leading causes of death worldwide, a Wednesday report from the World Health Organization found.
In 2014, 1.1 million people died from TB, and that number does not include the 0.4 million who had the disease and were also HIV-positive. In that same year, HIV/AIDS had taken its toll on the lives of 1.2 million people worldwide.
Overall, an estimated 9.6 million people are down with TB in 2014. Out of the 9.6 million, only 6 million of new cases get reported to the organization.
This means that 37 percent of the new cases were unreported.
NBC noted that these numbers are shockingly high because nations are not dedicating enough funds for treating the infectious disease, which usually requires a week- or month-long course of daily antibiotics to manage it.
According to WHO, about $1.3 billion is required to fund new drugs, new vaccines and conduct new tests against the infectious disease and $1.4 billion is needed to fund existing TB treatment regimens.
Although TB now ranks alongside HIV/AIDS there's still a bit of good news since the report also found that mortality from the disease has dropped to 47 percent since 1990.
Overall, measures done on the diagnosis and treatment of TB were effective and they were able to save around 43 million lives from 2000 to 2014.
The report focused more on the improved data on TB rather than the increased spread of TB.
Still, despite all the advances done to eradicate the disease and the fact that most of the cases are treatable, TB is still considered as one of the world's highly significant health threats.
"We are still facing a burden of 4,400 people dying every day, which is unacceptable in an era when you can diagnose and cure nearly every person with TB," Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of WHO's Global TB Program, said according to NBC News.
