World Tuberculosis Day March 24th 2019 Theme: “It’s TIME” — International Journal of Infectious Diseases Tuberculosis Theme Series

Tuberculosis today remains the world’s number one cause of death from an infectious disease (WHO, 2018a). According to data from the World Health Organization Global Tuberculosis Report (WHO, 2018a), global efforts to control tuberculosis are not on target to achieve the goals of the WHO Strategy to end the global tuberculosis epidemic by 2030 (WHO, 2015). In 2017, an estimated 10 millionpeople (5.8 million men, 3.2 million women, and 1 million children) developed tuberculosis and 4 million people with tuberculosis remained undiagnosed and untreated. There were 558,000 new cases of drug-resistantTB,82%ofwhichweremulti-drugresistanttuberculosis (MDR-TB-resistance to isoniazid and rifampicin), and 8.5% has extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB -MDR-TB plus resistance to both a fluoroquinolone and an injectable) (WHO, 2018a). Each year, World TB Day is commemorated on March 24, the day in 1882 when Professor Robert Koch first announced his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB). It’s a day when the world reflects on progress being made in achieving global TB control, the obstacles and what more can be done to facilitate global TB control activities. The theme for World TB Day on 24 March 2019 will be ‘It’s TIME’ (STOP TB Partnership, 2019), and it has been kept simple and flexible, so World TB Day events can cover any aspect of work related to TB. To commemorate World TB Day 2019, the International Journal of Infectious Diseases thematic issue contains 15 articles written by a distinguished global authorship covering a range of important epidemiological, clinical, management, prevention, research and funding issues. The articles provide a range of thought-provoking viewpoints on established dogma, current controversies, highlighting gaps and future challenges that need to be overcome to develop and achieve optimal interventions required for global TB control. These articles also illustrate vividly that ‘It’s Time’ for governments and donors to keep the promises made in the political declaration at the UNGA-HLM-TB and to increase the much-needed resources to find, diagnose and treat 40 million adults and children who will be affected by TB by 2022, and to conduct research on new diagnostics, treatments and vaccines required to achieve global TB control (Tiberi S et al. 2018; Zumla & Petersen, 2018).