First-ever UN High-Level Meeting on TB: The politeness stops here
Civil society doesn’t have the ability to say what needs to be said. The only ones who can get the message across effectively are those who don't want to die.
AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS, July 26, 2018 -- Heads of State will
gather in New York on 26 September this year at the United
Nations General Assembly first-ever high-level meeting on
tuberculosis (TB) to accelerate efforts in ending TB and reach
all affected people with prevention and care. The theme of the
meeting is “United to end tuberculosis: an urgent global
response to a global epidemic”.
Today at AIDS 2018 a new worldwide network of activists called
TBpeople has been launched. The members have personal experience
of/or have been affected directly by tuberculosis. The disease
kills more people with HIV than any other opportunistic
infection. Their objective is to be an effective voice in the
battle against the disease. Board Member of TBpeople, Timur
Abdullaev said; “Civil society doesn’t seem to have
the ability to say what needs to be said. The only ones who can
get the message across effectively are those who don’t
want to die.”
Comparisons at the launch were made with the HIV community which
rose up at the start of the AIDS pandemic and that have been
instrumental, if not the cause of major medical, legal and
social advances globally in addressing the virus since the
1980s. The proceedings of the launch of TBpeople were observed
by Peter Staley, American HIV/AIDS-LGBT rights activist, known
for his work with ACT UP and founding the Treatment Action Group
(TAG). He is a primary figure in the Oscar-nominated documentary
How to Survive a Plague.
Present at the launch were representatives from MSF’s
Access Campaign, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria, the Stop TB Partnership and the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. They called
for a more direct approach by affected communities and pledged
their support prior to the UN High Level Meeting on
Tuberculosis.
Sharonann Lynch of MSF’s Access Campaign said; “We
can do more to support and empower people with TB. We’ve
had a cure for TB for some time and still people are dying from
it. Every TB death is a stupid death. TB civil society is too
civil. We are all TBpeople and we need to wake the f*ck up. We
need to be outside the f*cking UN in New York with a wrecking
ball.”
Kate Thompson, Head of Community, Rights and Gender (CRG) at the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), a
leader in global health and development with over 30 years of
AIDS activism said; “This is exciting, it is happening.
This is the start of something much bigger and
broader.”
Lasha Goguadze of the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said; “Our agenda is fully
aligned with the TB community promoting equity, rights and
social care.”
The high-level meeting on TB is an unprecedented step forward by
governments and all partners engaged in the fight against TB. It
follows on from a very successful Ministerial Conference on
Ending TB in Moscow on 16-17 November, 2017 which resulted in
high-level commitments from Ministers and other leaders from 120
countries to accelerate progress to end TB.
The high-level meeting should result in an ambitious Political
Declaration on TB endorsed by Heads of State that will
strengthen action and investments for the end TB response,
potentially saving millions of lives.
Source:
EIN Presswire
