22 November 2017, Geneva, Switzerland – Last week, 75 ministers agreed to take urgent action to end TB by 2030 at the conclusion of the WHO Global Ministerial Conference on ‘Ending TB in the Sustainable Development Era: A Multisectoral Response’ in Moscow, Russia. President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation gave the keynote speech on the first day of the Conference on 16 November. The first high-level plenary started with the welcome address of Amina J Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary. The Conference was opened by Veronika Skvortsova, Minister of Health, Russian Federation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, Zsuzanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health of South Africa and Chair of the Stop TB Partnership, and Timpiyan Leseni, TB survivor from Kenya. The meeting was attended by ministers and country delegations, as well as representatives of civil society and international organizations, scientists, and researchers. More than 1000 participants took part in the two-day conference which resulted in collective commitment to ramp up action to end TB.
“In order to achieve a radical change in the fight against this disease, new approaches are needed, both at the national and international level, as well as the joint work of governmental agencies, public and professional organizations. Only coordinated and consistent actions will help us achieve a final victory over TB. We expect these steps to be supported at the highest level – by the General Assembly of the United Nations, whose meeting next year will focus on the problems of TB,” said the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
“The UN HLM on TB is the moment we have all been waiting for, and we will we seize the moment. No more calls for action, we need commitment. Together I know we can do it, it will not be easy but we must believe it is possible. This house is full, the attendance of so many ministers shows the commitment but we need to prepare for real commitment,” said Dr Tedros, WHO Director-General.
Speaking at the opening of the Global Ministerial Conference on TB, Minister of Health of South Africa and Chair of Stop TB Partnership, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi emphasized the need to elevate the discussions and engagement to end TB at the level of heads of state and government and UN leaders. “Tuberculosis kills more than 4500 people every day and it is time to be seriously addressed with the support and engagement of the heads of governments. We need to ensure that going towards the UNHLM in New York in September 2018, we have a very strong participation, a very strong Political Declaration and a very strong accountability framework. If we want this, we need to have good quality data on TB and for it to be user friendly that heads of state, ministers of finance and even ministers of health can rapidly see the status of their epidemic and targets,” said Dr Motsoaledi.
On this occasion, the Minister launched the Stop TB Partnership interactive country dashboards site that presents country-based TB essential information in a manner that is simple and user friendly in easy-to-use graphs – including TB burden, TB care and service delivery, finances and selected determinants/comorbidity.
No new data is collected, rather that data is derived from the Global Fund, Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, the Stop TB Partnership, WHO and the World Bank – as indicated in the dashboards.*
Petition signed by more than 35,000 people from 120 countries presented to Dr. Tedros, head of WHO and Ministers of Health.
In Moscow, the Stop TB Partnership and MSF released the report ‘Out of Step in Eastern Europe and Central Asia’ (EECA), presenting the results of an eight-country survey of national TB policies and practices. Among the countries surveyed, 75% have adopted the policy to use rapid molecular testing instead of older, slower testing methods, yet only half of those countries are actually using the test widely.
“In TB, we fight not only with mycobacterium tuberculosis, but also with the time. When we look at policies and guidelines and if country programmes need to update them, this is not an easy task, and it will take a lot of time to make it happen. If you add the time to have it approved and start the roll out, we are speaking here of years, not months. This is why it is important to keep up with the new recommendations and be able to adjust and adapt to the country context rapidly,” said Dr Lucica Ditiu, Executive Director of the Stop TB Partnership.
At the Global Ministerial Conference, Mariam Avanesova, who was treated for MDR-TB in Armenia in 2010-2012 and represents TBpeople, the Eurasian network of people with TB experience, handed over a petition to WHO’s Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus. The #StepUpforTB petition is an urgent call for health ministers in key TB-affected countries to get their TB policies and practices in line with international standards, as defined by WHO, including testing and treatment of TB and its drug-resistant forms. Initiated by MSF and the Stop TB Partnership, the petition has been signed by more than 35,000 people from 120 countries united with people affected by TB.
Source: Stop TB Partnership
