RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday highlighted Brazil's efforts to stop tuberculosis (TB) in its territory.

According to a report released by the organization, Brazil achieved significant and sustained improvement in the fight against TB in the past years.

Along with Cambodia, China, Uganda, and Tanzania, Brazil is one of the five nations which succeeded in reducing TB death rate in 2010 by half compared with 1990.

The number of TB cases in the world fell for the first time in 2010, said the WHO. But with 8.8 million cases, the disease remained a major global health problem, said the organization.

Although the TB death rate had significantly dropped over the years, the disease killed 1.4 million people around the world in 2010 alone.