Canadian Tuberculosis Tracker
Introduction
This tracker was compiled by Stop TB Canada, to provide transparent tracking of progress toward domestic and global tuberculosis (TB) elimination targets to which Canada has committed, and to hold policymakers accountable for progress toward these goals. The tracker is updated annually leading up to World TB Day (March 24th). A glossary of terms and an overview of data sources are provided in the last two sections.
For questions about the tracker, or suggestions for improvements/additions to the tracker, don’t hesitate to contact us at hello@stoptbcanada.com.
Elimination Targets and Surveillance Framework
Canada has endorsed global TB elimination targets through the World Health Organization (WHO) End TB Strategy and the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis (UNHLM), which aim to:
- By 2030:
- Reduce TB incidence by 80%
- Reduce TB deaths by 90%
- Eliminate catastrophic costs for TB-affected households
- By 2035:
- Reduce TB incidence by 90%
- Reduce TB deaths by 95%
Canada has also established domestic TB elimination targets, including to:
- By 2025:
- Reduce the incidence of active TB by 50% (compared to 2016 rates) among Inuit in Inuit Nunangat
- By 2030:
- Eliminate TB among Inuit across Inuit Nunangat
- By 2035:
- Reach pre-elimination incidence of TB across Canada
TB pre-elimination is defined as fewer than 10 notified TB cases per million population per year, while TB elimination is defined as fewer than 1 notified TB case per million population per year.
Tuberculosis surveillance in Canada is conducted through the Canadian Tuberculosis Reporting System (CTBRS) and the Canadian Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (CNDSS). Through these systems, provinces and territories report tuberculosis cases annually to the Public Health Agency of Canada. These surveillance systems provide standardized data on TB case counts and incidence rates, demographic characteristics such as age and sex, geographic distribution, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and treatment outcomes. The most recent data presented in this tracker reflect reporting up to 2024.
The Government of Canada provides detailed epidemiological data on TB through the Public Health Agency of Canada Tuberculosis Data Dashboard.
The dashboard presents national surveillance indicators including trends in TB incidence and case counts, provincial and territorial incidence, demographic patterns by age and sex, TB deaths, and drug-resistant TB. This data provides a central source for monitoring TB epidemiology in Canada.
TB Surveillance Updates (2024)
Active TB Diagnosis and Incidence
- In Canada, 2,508 active TB cases were reported in 2024, corresponding to 6.1 new cases per 100,000 population, an increase from 5.6 per 100,000 in 2023. Between 2015 and 2020, TB incidence ranged from 4.6 to 5.1 cases per 100,000 population without sustained declines. Since 2021, incidence has increased, reaching the highest level observed in the past decade in 2024.
Geographic Distribution of TB Incidence
- TB incidence continued to vary substantially across provinces and territories in 2024. Northern jurisdictions reported the highest rates, particularly Nunavut (>80 cases per 100,000 population). Among provinces, Saskatchewan and Manitoba reported incidence rates above the national average (>10 per 100,000), while Atlantic provinces reported the lowest incidence (<3 per 100,000). These disparities have persisted in recent years, highlighting ongoing geographic inequities in TB burden across Canada.
TB Incidence in Key Populations
- TB burden in Canada continued to be concentrated in specific populations in 2024. The majority of reported TB cases occurred among people born outside Canada, while Indigenous populations, particularly Inuit, experienced the highest incidence rates. Estimated incidence rates were 187 cases per 100,000 among Inuit, 14 per 100,000 among First Nations, and 17 per 100,000 among people born outside Canada. By comparison, TB incidence among Canadian-born non-Indigenous populations was fewer than 1 case per 100,000, highlighting persistent inequities in TB burden.
TB Treatment Success
- The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that tuberculosis (TB) programs achieve a treatment success rate (TSR), defined as the proportion of people with TB who complete treatment without bacteriological evidence of failure, of at least 90%. Canada did not meet this target in the most recent year with available data (2023). The WHO reported a TSR of 79% among new or relapse TB cases in Canada who initiated treatment in 2023, and 85% among individuals with both TB and HIV. Updated TSRs for Canada can be accessed through the WHO TB database.
World Health Organization (WHO) Estimates of the TB Burden in Canada
The following data are TB burden estimates for Canada (i.e., represent expected burden rather than actual notified cases), extracted from the World Health Organization TB burden estimates database. The most recent estimates available are for 2024. The methods used by the WHO to produce these estimates vary by country and are detailed here.
International Comparison of TB Incidence
Canada’s progress toward TB elimination can be contextualized by comparing trends in TB incidence with those observed in other high-income countries. A comparison of TB incidence in 2015 and 2024 across G7 and M5 countries using WHO estimates is shown in the graph below.
The Group of Seven (G7) includes Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. These countries represent high-income nations with comparable health system capacity.
The Migration Five (M5) includes Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries share similar TB epidemiological patterns, with a large proportion of cases occurring among people born outside the country.
These trends place Canada in the middle range of TB incidence among comparable countries, but highlight that Canada has experienced the largest increase in TB incidence since 2015 among the G7 and M5. This trend suggests that Canada is not currently on the same trajectory of progress toward TB reduction as several peer countries.
Canada’s Progress Towards Global and Domestic TB Elimination Goals
Eliminating TB across Inuit Nunangat by 2030
In 2017, the Government of Canada established an Inuit TB Elimination Task Force and committed to eliminating TB across Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland) by 2030 (with an interim goal of a 50% reduction in incidence by 2025, compared to 2017). According to the WHO’s definition of TB elimination, this means reaching a TB incidence of less than 1 TB case per million population by 2030. The latest data available stratifying Inuit / non-Inuit TB cases are from 2024, and report an incidence of 186.9 TB cases / 100,000 in the Inuit population in 2024, i.e. 1,869 cases / million. This underlines we are far from reaching the 2030 elimination target.
The graph below shows TB incidence (cases / million) among Inuit, compared to the Government of Canada’s Inuit TB elimination targets.
End TB Strategy Targets
The WHO’s End TB Strategy, launched in 2015, outlines milestones for reaching TB elimination, including the following:
Milestones - by 2025:
- 75% reduction in TB deaths (compared to 2015)
- 50% reduction in TB incidence rate (compared to 2015)
- No affected families facing catastrophic costs due to tuberculosis
Targets - by 2035:
- 95% reduction in TB deaths (compared to 2015)
- 90% reduction in TB incidence rate (compared to 2015)
- No affected families facing catastrophic costs due to tuberculosis
TB Incidence Reduction Target:
The chart below shows Canada’s progress towards the End TB milestone of reducing TB incidence by 50% by 2025, and the target of reducing it by 90% by 2035 (compared to 2015 levels). Having reported a TB incidence of 46 cases / million in 2015, this corresponds to a 2025 milestone of 23 cases / million, and a 2035 target of 5 cases / million. As evident from the graph, we are not on track to meeting this target, and incidence has in fact increased from 46 cases / million in 2015 to 61 cases / million in 2024.
TB Mortality Reduction:
Progress toward the End TB targets of reducing TB deaths by 75% (2025 milestone) and 95% (2035 target), relative to 2015, can now be assessed using more recent data available through 2023. In 2015, 107 TB-related deaths were reported in Canada. Based on End TB targets, this corresponds to:
- 27 deaths by 2025 (75% reduction)
- 5 deaths by 2035 (95% reduction)
However, progress toward these targets remains limited. After an initial decline to 69 deaths in 2019, the number of TB-related deaths has since increased, reaching 118 deaths in 2023, exceeding the 2015 baseline. These trends suggest that Canada is not currently on track to meet the End TB mortality reduction milestones and targets.
Protection From Catastrophic TB-Related Costs Target:
There are no data available on the number of households facing catastrophic costs due to TB in Canada.
Low-Incidence Country-Specific End TB Goals:
As the overall goal of the End TB Strategy is to end the global TB epidemic by 2035, which is defined as having a global incidence of fewer than 100 TB cases per million population, the Strategy needs adaptation to countries who already have a TB incidence lower than 100 cases / million. In its Action Framework for Low-Incidence Countries, the WHO defines pre-elimination and elimination targets for countries such as Canada, which provide a benchmark for assessing national progress:
Canada’s Progress Towards Pre-Elimination and Elimination Targets:
- Pre-elimination Target: <10 TB cases / million population - by 2035
- Elimination Target: <1 TB case / million population - by 2050
- Current situation in Canada (2024 case notification rate): 61 TB cases / million
The graph below shows Canada’s progress towards these pre-elimination and elimination targets.
Provincial Variation in Required TB Incidence Reduction
Progress toward TB elimination is uneven across Canada, reflecting substantial differences in both current incidence and trends over time. The graph below compares the annual reduction rates required in 2015 and 2024 to reach the pre-elimination target of fewer than 10 cases per million population by 2035 across provinces and territories. The largest required reductions are observed in regions with the highest current TB burden, particularly Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Provinces with lower incidence require smaller annual declines and are closer to the pre-elimination threshold. The widening gap between 2015 and 2024 across regions suggests that progress toward pre-elimination has been insufficient and increasingly uneven.
TB R&D Funding
At the first-ever United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB (UNHLM) in 2018, member states set a global TB R&D funding target (for 2018 to 2022) of 2 billion USD annually, to allow development of the tools and knowledge needed to end TB. Recognizing that the world lagged far behind this goal, having committed only half of the 2 billion target in 2022. At the next UNHLM on TB (held in September 2023), member states set a new target, to commit 5 billion USD annually to TB R&D by 2027. Despite this increased target, global TB R&D funding reached approximately 1.2 billion USD in 2023, representing less than one quarter of the 5 billion target.
As outlined in TB R&D funding reports by Treatment Action Group (TAG), the global funding target can be met if individual member states commit to contributing their “fair share” to TB R&D funding, defined as countries allocating at least 0.1% of their overall research spending to TB research. Given the updated target of 5 billion set at the 2023 UNHLM, the fair share target for individual countries is now increased to 0.15% of their overall research spending. Although earlier TAG reports assessed progress using the 0.1% fair share target, the 2024 report reflects the updated 0.15% target following the revised global funding goals set at the 2023 UNHLM. The figure below therefore shows both targets for comparison. Unfortunately, Canada has consistently failed to meet its fair share contribution. In 2023, Canada met only 28% of its fair share target, indicating a substantial gap between commitments and actual investment.
* The fair share target is defined as a percentage of a country’s overall R&D spending (gross domestic expenditure on research and development, GERD) allocated to TB research. Prior to 2023, this was set at 0.1%, corresponding to an annual target of 25.3 million USD for Canada. Following the updated global funding target of 5 billion USD set at the 2023 UNHLM, the fair share target has increased to 0.15%. For Canada, this corresponds to an annual target of approximately 51.7 million USD. As shown above, Canada continues to fall short of both the previous and updated fair share targets.
Canada’s Progress in WHO’s Priority Areas for TB Elimination in Low-Incidence Countries:
The framework also outlined 8 priority areas for low-incidence countries. We provide brief comments on how Canada is doing in each priority area.
Summary card for Canada’s progress in 8 priority areas identified in the WHO’s End TB Framework for low-incidence countries:
| Priority Area | Situation |
|---|---|
| Ensure political commitment, funding and stewardship for planning and essential services of high quality. | The government of Canada has voiced political commitment to TB elimination through signing on to global and domestic targets, however, more needs to be done to back these commitments with action and financial support. It is particularly concerning to see that Canadian funding for TB R&D has dropped since the previous year. In addition, the lack of ministerial presence from Canada at the most recent (2023) UNHLM signals insufficient political prioritization of TB elimination. (a) |
| Address the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups. | The persistence of TB in Canada is suggestive of a continuing failure to address health inequities in the country, particularly with respect to Inuit, First Nations and newcomer communities. For example, although the government has committed to eliminating TB across Inuit Nunangat by 2030, the failure to conduct timely and detailed national TB surveillance makes it impossible to plan ongoing TB prevention efforts or track progress towards this target. In addition, addressing the needs of key groups continues to be hindered by the ongoing unavailability of child-friendly TB drug formulations, and the lack of accessibility of several DR-TB drugs (only available via cumbersome temporary access mechanisms), increasing the risk of poor TB outcomes. |
| Address special needs of migrants and cross-border issues. | Ongoing barriers to access to healthcare for newcomers, which represent the majority of the TB burden in Canada. |
| Undertake screening for active TB and LTBI in TB contacts and selected high-risk groups, and provide appropriate treatment. | Rifapentine, a drug used in shorter course regimens for the management of latent TB infection, is now approved for use in Canada, however access remains inconsistent across jurisdictions. Screening for active TB and latent TB infection continues to focus on high risk populations, but uptake and completion of preventive therapy remain low. |
| Optimize the prevention and care of drug-resistant TB. | The Canada-specific target for MDR-TB case notification and treatment was not met in 2024 (see section below on MDR-TB-specific UNHLM targets for Canada), and data are unavailable for 2025. Several drugs used in drug resistant TB regimens remain difficult to access in Canada. While bedaquiline is now approved, other drugs such as delamanid and pretomanid are still accessed through limited mechanisms, which may delay optimal and timely care. |
| Ensure continued surveillance, programme monitoring and evaluation and case-based data management. | The quality of TB surveillance in Canada in recent years has been poor, with national TB reports being released with significant delays - this hinders planning of the current TB response and conducting program monitoring and evaluation. |
| Invest in research and new tools. | Canada has consistently failed to meet its fair share funding target for TB R&D. (See the TB R&D funding section above). It failed to meet this target again in 2023, falling even further short of it than in 2022. |
| Support global TB prevention, care and control. | As a founding partner of the Global Financing Facility, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and TB REACH, Canada has demonstrated ongoing commitment to supporting global TB elimination efforts. However, overall contributions remain below what is required, and Canada has yet to meet its fair share funding target for TB research. |
* (a) See Canada’s
limited presence at the UNHLM on TB
Source for targets: World
Health Organization. Towards TB Elimination: An Action Framework for
Low-Incidence Countries, 2014
UNHLM Commitments:
The United Nations High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis (UNHLM) has established global targets to accelerate progress toward TB elimination. While initial targets were set at the 2018 UNHLM, these were updated at the 2023 UNHLM, which established new targets to be achieved by 2027. Under these commitments, countries pledged to expand access to TB services, including reaching 90% of people with TB with diagnosis and treatment, treating up to 45 million people with TB between 2023 and 2027 (including 4.5 million children), and treating to up to 1.5 million people with drug-resistant TB (DR-TB). In addition, countries committed to providing TB preventive treatment to up to 45 million people over the same period. To make these global goals relevant to countries with varying epidemiological contexts, the Stop TB Partnership has provided country-level breakdowns of these targets based on WHO TB burden estimates in each country. The following tables provide a summary of the Canada-specific targets for TB, DR-TB, and TB in children, compared to case notifications, and progress towards meeting them up to the target year (2027). It should be noted, however, that notification does not guarantee successful treatment.
Summary card for Canada’s progress towards the country-specific UNHLM TB diagnosis and treatment targets
| Year | WHO active TB burden estimate for Canada (95%CI) | Canada-specific UNHLM target, number of people diagnosed and treated for TB | Reported active TB cases | Absolute difference | Above/below target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2400 (2000-2900) | 1926 | 2217 | 291 | Above |
| 2024 | 2500 (2000-3000) | 1974 | 2508 | 534 | Above |
| 2025 | — | 1722 | — | — | — |
| 2026 | — | 1303 | — | — | — |
| 2027 | — | 1229 | — | — | — |
Sources: TB Case Data: CNDSS, Canadian Tuberculosis Reporting System (PHAC Tuberculosis Data Dashboard). TB Burden Estimates: WHO, Canada-specific UNHLM targets: Stop TB Partnership. UNHLM on TB - Key Targets and Commitments
Summary card for Canada’s progress towards the country-specific UNHLM DR-TB diagnosis and treatment targets
| Year | Canada-specific UNHLM target, number of people diagnosed and treated for MDR-TB | Reported MDR-TB cases | Absolute difference | Above/below target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 48 | 34 | 14 | Below |
| 2024 | 49 | 29 | 20 | Below |
| 2025 | 43 | — | — | — |
| 2026 | 32 | — | — | — |
| 2027 | 30 | — | — | — |
Sources: MDR-TB Case Data: Canadian Tuberculosis Reporting System (PHAC Tuberculosis Data Dashboard), Canada-specific UNHLM targets: Stop TB Partnership. UNHLM on TB - Key Targets and Commitments
Summary card for Canada’s progress towards the country-specific UNHLM childhood TB diagnosis and treatment targets
| Year | Canada-specific UNHLM target, number of children* diagnosed and treated for TB | Reported active TB in children* | Absolute difference | Above/below target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 193 | 108 | 85 | Below |
| 2024 | 198 | 141 | 57 | Below |
| 2025 | 154 | — | — | — |
| 2026 | 102 | — | — | — |
| 2027 | 83 | — | — | — |
* Defined as TB in those under 15 years of
age.
Sources: TB Case Data: CNDSS and Canadian
Tuberculosis Reporting System (PHAC
Tuberculosis Data Dashboard), Canada-specific UNHLM targets: Stop TB
Partnership. UNHLM on TB - Key Targets and
Commitments
TB Vaccine Development
Vaccine Development Snapshot (2023)
- Number of TB vaccine candidates (vaccines in clinical trials): 16
- Number of TB vaccines in Phase 1 trials: 4
- Number of TB vaccines in Phase 2 trials: 6
- Number of TB vaccines in Phase 3 trials: 6
- Number of approved TB vaccines: 1
- Global investment in TB vaccine development (2023): 227 million USD
Sources: TB Vaccine Development: Global Tuberculosis Report, 2025, TB Vaccine Funding: 2024 Treatment Action Group TB R&D Funding Report
There is currently only one TB vaccine approved for use. It was developed in 1921, and it is ineffective at preventing the most common form of TB (pulmonary TB) in adults. This highlights the urgent need for a new TB vaccine, but adequate investment in TB vaccine development is lacking. In contrast, COVID-19 vaccine funding and development was extensive and rapid, with multiple highly effective vaccines rolled out within just the first year of the pandemic. The need for increased commitment to TB vaccine development has been outlined by Stop TB Canada here, including a comparison to investments in COVID-19 vaccines.
Glossary of Terms
- Active TB: Active TB disease
is when an individual has symptoms of TB and can transmit TB to
others.
- TB Infection (TBI): TB infection is
when an individual is infected with TB bacteria but has no symptoms of
the disease and cannot spread TB to others. TBI can progress to active
TB disease, but only about 5-10 % of people with TBI will develop active
TB in their lifetime, with the highest likelihood of
progression being within the first 2 years of exposure.
- TB Incidence: The number of new TB cases per number
of people in the population.
- Treatment Success Rate (TSR): The proportion of
registered TB cases successfully
completing treatment without bacteriological evidence of treatment
failure.
- Multidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB): Resistance
to the TB drugs isoniazid and rifampin, with or without resistance to
other TB drugs.
Contributors
- Lena Faust, Stop TB Canada (versions 2022-2023)
- Miranda Zary, Stop TB Canada (version 2023)
- Krish Patel (version 2026)
Data Sources
- Canadian Notifiable Disease Surveillance System
(CNDSS): Provinces and territories report annual data on
notifiable diseases (diseases which have been identified as priorities
for monitoring), including TB, to the federal government via the CNDSS.
CNDSS data are accessible via the Notifiable Diseases
Platform, which reports data from 1924 onwards.
- World Health Organization (WHO) TB database: This
database
comprises TB data from all countries and territories asked to report TB
data to the WHO.
- WHO Global TB Reports: These annual
reports, published every year since 1997, compile global and
country-level data from the WHO TB database (see above).
- Treatment Action Group (TAG) TB R&D Funding
Reports: TAG releases annual
reports tracking global TB R&D funding contributions from
governments, organizations and other donors.
- Data for country-level UNHLM target estimates: Country-level
breakdowns for the UNHLM targets are provided by the Stop TB
Partnership, and are based on TB burden estimates in each country,
sourced from the WHO TB database.
- Health Infobase – Tuberculosis Disease Surveillance: This dashboard provides data on tuberculosis in Canada through interactive visualizations and tables. The data are sourced from the Canadian Tuberculosis Reporting System and Statistics Canada.