Tuberculosis' mortality rate has lessened by half since 1990, but it remains a leading cause of death from infectious diseases, alongside HIV/AIDS, WHO reports.
In 2014, TB killed 1.5 million people while HIV/AIDS killed 1.2 million.
Countries are not spending enough money to treat people with the highly infectious disease, which takes weeks or months of daily antibiotics to eradicate, NBC News reports.
The two infectious diseases often affect people with the same weakness factors. However, even with an obvious similarity in targeted groups and death tolls, researchers on TB do not have as much funding as those fighting HIV/AIDS.
Funding in 2013 for TB was only at $5.3 billion compared to the estimated $19.1 billion investment on HIV/AIDS treatment.
HIV/AIDS has gained great support and access to treatments in the past years, according to the report, but, it also shows the disparity in funding between TB and HIV/AIDS, Reuters reports.
"They are killing at the same rate...In the end, TB deserves the same amount of attention as HIV/AIDS, " said Mario Raviglione, WHO Global TB Program director, according to The Huffington Post.
"Ending the TB epidemic is now part of the Sustainable Development Goal agenda. If we want to achieve it, we'll need far more investment - at a level befitting such a global threat. We'll also need progress on universal health coverage and poverty alleviation. We want the most vulnerable communities worldwide to gain first, not last, in our efforts," said Eric Goosby, U.N. Special Envoy on Tuberculosis, WHO adds.
