In addition to the World TB Day (March 24) coverage compiled here, here are some more messages, statements, opinion pieces and blog posts:
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HuffPost: We can cure tuberculosis if world leaders step up
Ambassador Eric Goosby, U.N. secretary general’s special envoy on TB
“…As we head toward the [U.N. High-Level Meeting (UNHLM)] on TB, I am honored to be co-chairing the Lancet Commission on TB, which is working to issue recommendations on how to put the world on a path to defeating the disease. The commission is focused on four areas for action. First, we must ensure implementation of evidence-based strategies to combat the disease. … Second, it is critical that we invest in TB research and development. … Third, significant resources must be dedicated to implement strategies to end TB. … Finally, we must address the serious social, financial, and clinical barriers to care that undermine TB control efforts… It is also my hope that between now and the UNHLM in September, all who care about ending TB use their voices to demand that their leaders act. … Let us seize [this moment] and build a TB-free world once and for all…”.
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STAT: World leaders have the power to end TB. They must seize the moment
Eric Goosby, U.N. secretary general’s special envoy on TB, and Michel Kazatchkine, special adviser to UNAIDS for Eastern Europe and Central Asia
“….As we mark World TB Day and eagerly await a U.N. meeting on TB in September, we must work to sustain this commitment and build upon it to truly achieve a TB-free world. … Ending TB requires political will. Specifically, the global community must unite around efforts to develop better tools to diagnose TB and get to the ‘forgotten’ four million who have not been detected; build upon what we know works to prevent, detect, and treat TB; and enact universal health coverage that will help reduce the number of deaths due to TB and other infectious and noncommunicable diseases. Ending TB also means addressing the growing threat of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). … We must not miss this historic opportunity. Let’s seize the moment and end TB once and for all”.
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PLOS Medicine: Time for high-burden countries to lead the tuberculosis research agenda
Madhukar Pai, director of Global Health Programs at McGill University and associate director of the McGill International TB Centre
“…The world cannot depend on a few wealthy countries with very low TB incidence to support all the research that is required to tackle TB. High-burden, middle-income countries with high TB rates must step up. They have the potential to transform the global TB research agenda through increased domestic funding, collaborative networks, and transnational research partnerships. By taking the lead on TB research, high-burden countries not only can meet their own national strategic plan goals but can also take a leading step towards fulfilling the commitment to end the TB epidemic, with targets to reduce TB deaths by 95 percent and to reduce TB incidence rate by 90 percent between 2015 and 2035”.
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Project Syndicate: The neglected solution to the TB crisis
Joanne Liu, international president of Médecins Sans Frontières, and Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, professor at Harvard Medical School, and chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
“…This September, the United Nations will host its first high-level meeting on the TB crisis. U.N. member states should use the occasion to pledge a radical increase in funding for TB programs around the world, and to overhaul an R&D model that has proved unfit for purpose. … Specifically, what we need are simpler, quicker, and cheaper ways to test and treat TB, especially in remote and impoverished settings. We need better tools to prevent infections in the first place, and to kill latent infections before they kill us. And, of course, we need a robust pipeline of drugs to ward off TB and its resistant forms. … A U.N. meeting is a golden opportunity to make progress. … [I]t is a chance finally to elevate TB to the World Health Organization-designated status of a ‘public health emergency of international concern,’ as was done in wake of the Ebola and Zika outbreaks…”
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The Conversation: Why community and not confinement will end TB
Eric Friedman and Drew Aiken, both researchers at Georgetown University
“…Without a response to TB based in human rights — including moving rapidly to community-based care and improving the conditions in prisons — we believe that progress will remain fatally slow. … To end TB as a public health threat by 2030, … countries should urgently change their laws and their practices to conform to both the right to health care and the most effective public health practices. That means ensuring everyone has access to comprehensive quality health services and ensuring everyone the nutrition, adequate housing, and other underlying determinants of health to which all people are entitled. … [C]ountries must unite to end the era where confinement and punitive measures are routinely used as a response to TB. Instead, they should establish a new era, one marked by community-based care, informed by evidence and human rights-based approaches”.
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The Conversation: How to help people with tuberculosis avoid the medical poverty trap
Tom Wingfield, NIHR academic clinical lecturer and LIV-TB collaboration lead at the University of Liverpool
“…A more holistic approach to TB control is needed that addresses not just the disease but also the person who has the disease and the circumstances in which they live. In its 2015 End TB Strategy, the World Health Organization (WHO), for the first time in the modern era of TB control, called for social support and poverty alleviation strategies for people with TB to reduce the hidden costs of treatment, reduce stigma, empower patients, and increase TB prevention, the number cured, and their overall well-being. … Helping households affected by TB to avoid the medical poverty trap, and providing them with moral support and hope, can enhance TB care and prevention. Without it, we won’t achieve the End TB Strategy goal of eliminating the disease by 2050, and millions more vulnerable households … could continue to suffer an entirely avoidable downward spiral of poverty and ill health”.
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The Lancet: The upcoming U.N. general assembly resolution on tuberculosis must also benefit children
Anne K. Detjen, health specialist for childhood tuberculosis at UNICEF, and colleagues
“… The Child and Adolescent TB Working Group of the Stop TB Partnership proposes that countries commit to the following targets [at the U.N. High-Level Meeting on TB in September] … (1) by 2019, all states have established an inter-ministry task force and developed a funded action plan to address child tuberculosis comprehensively across maternal, child, and adolescent populations; (2) by 2022, 90 percent of children with household exposure to an infectious tuberculosis case … receive preventive therapy each year; (3) by 2022, 90 percent of children with tuberculosis and MDR tuberculosis are diagnosed…, given appropriate treatment, and reported to national tuberculosis programs; and (4) from 2018, countries steeply increase their research funding to address the needs of children, especially for research towards the development of new child-friendly diagnostics, treatments, and an improved vaccine”.
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UNDP: Time to end the neglect
Mandeep Dhaliwal, Director, HIV, Health and Development Group, UNDP
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USAID: Statement from USAID Administrator Mark Green on World Tuberculosis Day
Marking World TB Day, USAID Administrator Mark Green says, “USAID remains committed to saving millions of lives by ending the tuberculosis epidemic by 2030. We will continue to invest resources, leverage contributions from others, and ensure a coordinated and effective response. Building resilient and sustainable tuberculosis programs will contribute significantly to our broader goal of transforming families, communities, and countries so they can thrive and prosper”.
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International Organisation for Migration: Migrants lead fight against TB
On the occasion of World TB Day on March 24, the UN agency International Organisation for Migration (IOM) celebrated and highlighted the role that migrants play in fighting TB.
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WHO Regional Office for Africa: Message of Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, on World TB Day 2018
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World Bank’s “Investing in Health”: Tuberculosis: new hope for an ancient disease
Miriam Schneidman, a lead health specialist in the Africa Region of the World Bank, discusses the global TB epidemic, including key achievements thus far and challenges moving forward. Schneidman also notes India’s new goal to end TB by 2025 and the upcoming U.N. High-Level Meeting on TB in September.
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TB Alliance: After World TB Day, high expectations for action
A message from Mel Spigelman, TB Alliance President and CEO
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The Lancet Public Health: Tackling mortality due to childhood tuberculosis
Sylvain Godreuil, Olivier Marcy, Eric Wobudeya, Maryline Bonnet, Jérôme Solassol
"March 24 marks World Tuberculosis Day, an opportunity to promote greater commitment and leadership in the fight against tuberculosis at all levels. It is particularly urgent to increase awareness and mobilisation on childhood tuberculosis because tuberculosis mortality is still un-acceptably high in children."
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Health-e News: WORLD TB DAY: Breakthrough returns to 100-year-old vaccine
A breakthrough South African study may change the course of vaccine research for the world’s number one infectious-disease killer: TB. While a new vaccine has been heralded as the only hope, researchers have returned to an old vaccine discovered almost 100 years ago for answers.
Health-e News: Championing a TB free South Africa
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi is that fiery blend of political activism, commitment to mission, and professional competence that will help to bring an end to TB, writes TB Proof’s Ingrid Schoeman ahead of World TB Day.
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Forbes: Tuberculosis is a growing threat the U.S. isn't prepared to leal with (Part 1 of World TB Day coverage)
By Judy Stone
Forbes: Where political and economic instability is making tuberculosis a growing public health threat (Part 2 of World TB Day coverage)
By Judy Stone
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Baltimore Sun: ‘TB anywhere is a threat to people everywhere’
Allison Berkowitz, adjunct instructor at Simmons College
“…There are two line items in the Department of State USAID requests that will go a long way toward eradicating TB. The first is … for bilateral tuberculosis; and the second is … for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. Please urge all our Maryland representatives in the U.S. House and our two U.S. senators to champion these two critical line items in the fight against TB. … This money can help prevent the senseless deaths of 1.7 million people internationally and the suffering of 9,200 Americans, several hundred here in Maryland, who require TB treatment each year. They can do it, but they need to hear from us, so please help” (3/25).
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HuffPost: ‘This is real momentum’: World TB Day finally marks a promising shift
The political will needed to end tuberculosis — the world’s top infectious killer — may have arrived.
By Lauren Weber
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HuffPost: It’s time for the world’s leaders to support the fight against tuberculosis
Brenda Shanahan, Dean Allison, and Mobina Jaffer, members of the Global Health Caucus on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Canada
“…[O]n Sept. 26, 2018 the United Nations (U.N.) will host a High-Level Meeting (HLM) on TB. … March 24 is World TB Day, which marks the kick-off to a global campaign — Wanted: Leaders for a TB-Free World. Canada’s all-party parliamentary Global Health Caucus on HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria are great examples of leaders who are working hard to make a TB-free world a reality. The caucus is made up of parliamentarians who are champions for the eradication of TB in Canada and across the globe. … [T]he caucus has been working to help build the necessary political momentum in Canada and around the world to end TB for good. … This is the kind of leadership we need to end TB…”.
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FT Health: Time for action on tuberculosis
The latest issue of the Financial Times’ weekly global health newsletter recognizes World TB Day and discusses global progress and commitment toward ending TB. The newsletter also features an interview with Glenda Gray, president of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), and provides a round-up of other global health-related news stories.
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The Globe and Mail: In Canada, TB exists as a symptom of social inequity
By André Picard
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ATCMedia: Incidence of TB in Romania is 6.5 times higher than in the EU
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Healio: World TB Day: Current rate of progress not enough to eliminate TB