Sri Lanka has 17,000 Tuberculosis (TB) patients. Between 8,000 and 11,000 new TB patients are discovered from the country every year, a Health Ministry spokesman said.

A total of 8,996 new TB patients were discovered last year, the spokesman said. Meanwhile Sri Lanka has targeted to eradicate TB by 2015. In 1990 there were 2,770 TB deaths but in 2008 only 1685 TB deaths were reported.