TB epidemic larger than thought: WHO

The tuberculosis epidemic is larger than previously thought, infecting 10.4 million people last year, while research into vaccines and cures is "severely underfunded," the World Health Organization warned yesterday.

Across the planet, 1.8 million people died of TB last year, 300,000 more than a year earlier, according to the WHO's Global TB Report 2016.

Two out of five people who fell sick with the disease -- caused by a bacteria that infects the lungs and makes people cough up blood -- went undiagnosed and untreated.