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Project Syndicate: The road to a TB-free world
Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS; Lucica Ditiu, Executive Director of the Stop TB Partnership
“Despite being preventable and curable, tuberculosis infects more than ten million people each year and is the most common cause of death by an infectious agent in modern times. The international community needs to take five specific actions to eliminate the scourge of TB once and for all.”
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Bloomberg: Who dies from tuberculosis?
Editorial Board
“Tuberculosis, a disease fueled by poverty, overcrowding, and undernutrition, is a global barometer of deprivation. Of the more than 4,000 men, women, and children TB kills every day, most are poor. … Because healthy people are relatively safe from tuberculosis, improved living standards during the early 20th century helped lower the incidence. … But in recent decades, the emergence of HIV and mutant antibiotic-resistant bacteria have hampered control efforts, slowing the pace of decline in global TB incidence. From 2000 to 2015, TB claimed 33 million lives and cost the world economy an estimated $616 billion, with India, Indonesia, China, and Russia carrying half that burden, according to a recent KPMG report. Unless governments, civil society organizations, and individual citizens take more effective action, by 2030, a further $1 trillion and 28 million lives may be lost”.
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Bloomberg: What it will take to finally defeat tuberculosis
Editorial Board
“…[W]hen world leaders say they want to end the [TB] epidemic by 2030, they are setting a tight deadline. … [M]edical science needs to come up with quicker, safer, and cheaper ways to diagnose TB, and a pipeline of new drugs to kill the bacteria and its resistant forms. Economic incentives for drug makers are essential … A shortage of global funding for medical research … explains why decades have gone by with no new TB treatments or vaccines. The good news is that a dozen vaccine candidates are now in clinical trials. … But history is clear about the consequences of inaction: Infections will multiply, millions more lives will be lost, and increasing antibiotic resistance will make it even costlier to stop this ancient foe”.
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The Global Fund: UN High-Level Meeting on TB: High expectations
VOICES
"An upcoming UN high-level meeting dedicated to tuberculosis has raised expectations that 2018 can be a watershed moment in the effort to end TB. At the sidelines of the 71st World Health Assembly, the Global Fund spoke to health ministers from across the world, who expressed optimism that 2018 can be a turning point in the fight against TB as well as the effort to deliver Sustainable Development Goal 3, which seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all."