Celebrating life after tuberculosis

Republic of the Congo tackles the world’s top infectious killer

March 19, 2026

Person in a blue shirt among green leafy crops, holding a small plant. — Clarisse Bandouenga Woumba was cured of tuberculosis, thanks to national efforts to improve access to rapid testing and treatment.

UNDP Republic of the Congo/Pascale Touloulou

It started as a celebration. Clarisse Bandouenga Woumba, a seamstress, had just married Albert Talenotsi in Kombo Matari, outside of Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo. Only weeks later, she had cycles of fever, coughing and night sweats.

“November, December, January—I was losing weight,” she recalled.

Antibiotics brought by her husband, a health assistant, proved ineffective. As her condition worsened, the couple visited Blanche Gomes hospital in Brazzaville. Doctors suspected tuberculosis (TB) and ordered chest X-rays and a test for TB lung infection at Grandes Endémies, a nearby diagnostic centre.

Clarisse was devastated by her diagnosis.

“I cried all day,” she said. She worried about transmitting TB to her young daughter and son, who received preventive medicines. Her own treatment was gruelling: six months long, with bouts of nausea. Slowly, she regained her weight and strength.

After their wedding expenses, free treatment assuaged the couple’s fears about the cost of care.

In 2023, 86 percent of people with TB were successfully treated in the Republic of the Congo, which saves lives and reduces further transmission.

UNDP Republic of the Congo/Pascale Touloulou

Though preventable, treatable and curable, TB remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease, claiming 1.2 million lives in 2024. That same year, Clarisse and an estimated 19,000 people had TB in the Republic of the Congo, one of the most-affected countries.

The Ministry of Health and Population, with support from UNDP, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and partners, is strengthening health services and systems to eliminate TB nationally. Efforts have brought cases down by 13 percent and deaths by nearly a third from 2015 to 2024.

Mary Vincent Paola Passy Mambou is part of a network of sample transporters who carefully transport sputum samples from outlying areas to laboratories for TB testing

UNDP Republic of the Congo/Pascale Touloulou

“Sometimes people lack financial resources to travel to specialized TB screening centres,” said Mary Vincent Paola Passy Mambou. “We retrieve medical samples for testing, providing a service that protects public health,” she concluded.

Based in Brazzaville, Mary Vincent is part of a recently established biological sample transportation network. She navigates inclement weather at times, carefully keeping sputum samples at a low temperature and bringing them to a laboratory for testing.

Her work helps reduce travel expenses for people living in outlying areas, ensuring more people benefit from advances in TB diagnostic technology. But even with free testing and medicines, other health-related costs such as travel to clinics and lost income due to illness limit access to TB services and push nearly one in three families in the country into financial hardship.

Dr. Darrel Ornelle Elion Assiana leads the national TB reference laboratory in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, which has significantly scaled-up operations to rapidly diagnose TB.

UNDP Republic of the Congo/Pascale Touloulou

Since 2018, advances included upgrades to the National Mycobacterial Reference Laboratory, also in Brazzaville, to biosafety level 3, a high standard set by the World Health Organization (WHO). Technicians can now safely analyze bacterial cultures and detect resistance to anti-TB medicines, allowing doctors to diagnose and treat TB more precisely.

The laboratory has nearly tripled the number of testing centres and expanded the use of Xpert MTB/RIF rapid diagnostic testing to 31 TB healthcare facilities, further broadening access to testing and drug resistance detection.

Rapid test results allow people with TB, especially those with deadlier drug-resistant forms, to promptly begin appropriate treatment.

UNDP Republic of the Congo/Pascale Touloulou

For people with TB, rapid diagnosis allows life-saving treatment to begin right away.

“The time taken to deliver results is around 24 hours. Patients are satisfied with this rapid follow-up,” said Dr. Darrel Ornelle Elion Assiana, who heads the laboratory and its testing network.

For doctors, on-site services enable immediate decision-making, ensuring patients receive appropriate care. It also permits monthly follow-up with people starting treatment for drug-resistant TB, to confirm medicines are working.

“Doctors can prescribe medication with confidence,” Dr. Elion Assiana added.

Improvements in TB diagnosis ensure more people receive and complete treatment, a key condition for ending TB globally.

UNDP Republic of the Congo/Pascale Touloulou

For the health system, laboratory improvements boost resilience.

Previously, detecting treatment resistance required transferring biological samples to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with wait times delaying treatment decisions. Local services reduced this reliance, while sample transportation systems are also used for HIV and mpox testing, strengthening pandemic preparedness and responses to other epidemics.

Following the upgrades, the use of WHO-recommended molecular testing surged by 133 percent from 2022-2024. Bacteriological confirmation rates more than doubled, providing definitive diagnoses that enable more effective treatment. Nearly all cases were tested for resistance in 2024.

Newly diagnosed, Clarisse joined over 13,000 people treated in 2024. She went for her last check-up and X-ray in July that year.

“I was cured,” she recalled, looking forward to her first wedding anniversary.

Clarisse was cured after six months of TB treatment. Her family received preventive medicines, protecting them and local community from further transmission.

UNDP Republic of the Congo/Pascale Touloulou

Led by the Republic of the Congo, frontline workers and laboratory improvements are powering efforts to end TB. But global funding cuts threaten hard-won progress.

Sustained investment in health systems, including advanced diagnostics and innovations, can simplify and expand access to testing and treatment, which are essential to ending TB by 2030. In turn, these investments build health resilience—providing even more reasons to celebrate like Clarisse.