CAPE TOWN, 5th DECEMBER 2015: Today activists disrupted the calm halls of the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health. Activists from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), SECTION27, the Global TB Community Advisory Board, the Global Coalition of TB Activists (GCTA) and the ITPC sat on the floors of the hallways and held their own plenary session in huge disappointment at the “business as usual” status quo of the Union.
“The Union are proud that they have ‘acted for 100
years’, but what is there to be proud of? TB remains the top killer
in South Africa with over 80,000 TB deaths recorded every year. Worldwide,
1.5 million people died of TB in 2014, the reality is that some of us here
today will die of TB,” said Anele Yawa, General Secretary of the
Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
The Union continues to reiterate the importance of a patient-centred
approach to end TB. However, we continue to see how DOTS is promoted as
the gold standard, obligating patients around the world to go everyday to
the clinics and have their lives devoted to the health system, when it
should be the other way around. We keep hearing how community health
workers are fundamental, but they keep being unrecognized underpaid
–if paid at all –and requested to work seven days a week for
the good of their communities with no compensation and only awarded with
good words and intentions.
“Community health workers are doing the bulk of the work to ensure
people with TB are getting the treatment they need and deserve. They must
be employed under dignified, unionised, fair working conditions,”
said Mark Heywood from SECTION27.
The “community plenary” heard from activists from South
Africa, India, Ukraine, Kenya, the United States and many other countries
across the world who are fed up with the status quo and demand a stronger
response to TB.
“People in our communities are dying – yet the Union is
congratulating themselves for a job well done. We say enough is enough!
When are we going to address the social and economic drivers of this
pandemic? When are we going to see ambitious science and game-changing
data at this meeting? No more business as usual!” said Blessi Kumar
from the Global Coalition of TB Activists (GCTA).
There are too many “high-level panels” heavy on opinion and
light on new scientific findings. There has to be an
ATTITUDE change if we are to move the needle. The
activists therefore demand a conference that focuses on presenting more
new science and actual data with less bureaucratic high level opinion from
people based in low burden countries.
Source:
Treatment Action Campaign