News on Tuberculosis
Source: WHO, EIP Discussion paper 36, 2000
New! Global Tuberculosis Control 2008. Surveillance, Planning, Financing
This annual WHO report shows that nearly 3/4 million people living with HIV fell ill with TB disease in 2006, confirming that TB is a major cause of illness and death in people living with HIV despite being mostly preventable and curable. Africa is yet again the most heavily affected continent, with 85% of the global burden of HIV-related TB.
The report contain some good news, with encouraging signs, especially from Africa, that TB and HIV programmes are increasingly working together to reduce the heavy burden of TB in people living with HIV. But the report also tells us that we are far from providing universal access to high-quality prevention, diagnostic, treatment and care services for HIV and TB.
New! The Global Plan to Stop TB 2006-2015
As a global movement to accelerate social and political action to stop the spread of TB, the Stop TB Partnership provides the platform for a Global Plan to Stop TB that covers the period 2006–2015. The Plan sets out the activities that will make an impact on the global burden of TB. This involves reducing TB incidence – in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The total cost of the Plan – US$56 billion – represents a threefold increase in annual investment in TB control compared with the first Global Plan. The estimated funding gap is US$31 billion, since an estimated US$25 billion is likely to be available based on projections of current funding trends. Full funding of the Plan will enable implementation of the Stop TB Strategy and global achievement of the Partnership’s targets, as a step towards our vision of a TB-free world.
Link to the homepage - click here: The Global Plan
New! WHO report: Global tuberculosis control - surveillance, planning, financing
This World Health Organization report on surveillance, planning and financing for TB control includes data on case notifications and treatment outcomes from all national TB control programmes (NTPs) that have reported to WHO, together with an analysis of plans, budgets, expenditures and progress in DOTS expansion for 22 high-burden countries(HBCs). The reports hihglights that in most areas of the world, the battle against tuberculosis is being successfully fought, but in Africa the disease has reached alarming proportions with a growing number of TB cases and deaths linked to HIV.
New! Task force report: Investing in strategies to reverse the global incidence of TB
This task force paper is a part of the UN Millennium Project. It addresses the impact of TB on both human health and economic performance. TB can be controlled. Transmission of TB and death due to the disease can be reduced dramatically through known and proven interventions. Yet because these interventions are not applied as widely as they need to be, millions of people die each year of TB and millions are incapacitated. The report provides concrete and practical steps that governments and international agencies can take to treat and prevent TB.
Progress Report on the Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis
The Stop TB Partnership has made substantial progress toward achieving the strategic objectives of the Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis (GPSTB). This update summarizes the Partnership's achievements and the challenges it faces in the struggle to control and eventually eliminate this devastating disease. This GPSTB update demonstrates impressive strides in the fight against TB. Nonetheless, in many places, TB is spreading faster than TB-control efforts. Continued large-scale investments of financial and human resources are needed to accelerate progress against TB and to eliminate the disease as a global health threat.
With 8.5 million new cases and nearly 2 million deaths annually, the global TB epidemic has reached an unprecedented scale. The DOTS Expansion Working Group (DEWG) has published its findings and recommendations from meetings 18-19 September 2003: Progress in TB control can contribute to improved health and poverty reduction, and depends on actions which are beyond the specifics of TB control. This implies that for further progress in TB control, the TB constituency must reach out to the broader constituency of governments and agencies committed to accelerating health improvement and poverty reduction. This broader constituency must also support TB control as part of it's contribution to achieving the MDGs. Click here for background document link
Millennium Project: Interim Report of Task Force 5 Working Group on Tuberculosis
This document is an interim report from the Working Group on Tuberculosis within the Millennium Project Task Force on HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria and Access to Medicines. The full array of strategies and key elements expand successful completion of treatment, adequately address TB/HIV co-infection and Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB), as well as develop new drugs, vaccines and diagnostic technology are critical to the global effort. This comprehensive approach will be essential in meeting the Millennium Development Goal of reversing the incidence of tuberculosis by 2015.
The report focus on access to treatment of tuberculosis. From an economical point of view the cost projections in the appendices are of special interest.