"The momentum to break this disease is in real danger," said the Director of the Stop TB Department of the UN World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Mario Raviglione.
"We are now at a crossroads between TB elimination within our lifetime, and millions more TB deaths," Raviglione said.
The UN official's comments came as the health agency released the WHO Tuberculosis Report 2012, which finds that an estimated 20 million people are alive as a direct result of TB care and control.
The report features data from 204 countries and territories, and covers all aspects of TB, including multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), TB's links to HIV, research and development and financing.
"In the space of 17 years, 51 million people have been successfully treated and cared for according to WHO recommendations.
"Without that treatment, 20 million people would have died," Raviglione said in a UN statement.
Despite the progress, TB remains a major infectious killer, according to the report.
Among its findings, the report notes there is continued decline in the number of people falling ill from TB, but still an enormous global burden, with 8.7 million new cases in 2011.
As well, it notes an estimated 1.4 million deaths from TB, including half a million women, underlining the disease as one of the world's top killers of women.
However, the report also notes that there is a USD 1.4 billion funding gap per year for research and development into new ways to combat TB
