Authors: Helena Arntz, Olesya Kravchuk, AFEW International
24th of March marks World Tuberculosis day. The mortality rate of tuberculosis (TB) continues to decrease, but it is still one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), TB caused 1.7 million deaths in 2017. Within the European region, most new TB cases and deaths are found in the Eastern European and Central Asian (EECA) countries. In this region, we face an increasing number of drug-resistant TB cases which becomes a real concern for patients and public health.
Countries in the Eastern part of the WHO European Region are most affected by the TB epidemic: 18 high-priority countries for TB control bear 85% of the TB burden, and 99% of the multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) burden. These countries are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Republic of Moldova, Romania, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Despite much progress in Eastern Europe, critical challenges remain as regards access to appropriate treatment regimens, patient hospitalisation, scale-up of laboratory capacity, including the use of rapid diagnostics and second-line Drug Susceptibility Testing (DST), vulnerable populations human resources, and financing.
AFEW Network is helping to eliminate tuberculosis in EECA. AFEW Kazakhstan together with KNCV in the Improved TB/HIV prevention & care – building models for the future project is increasing access to TB treatment. A model for effective partnership between government and public sectors of health care and organisation of civil society that provide TB-HIV services in Almaty, Kazakhstan is being developed. Within the Fast-Track TB/HIV Responses for Key Populations in EECA Cities project, AFEW Kazakhstan is piloting the innovative model of increasing the participation of the city administration in programs for the prevention and treatment of HIV infection and tuberculosis in the city of Almaty with particular emphasis on key populations. Within this program, models of sustainable city responses to HIV and TB in key population in EECA that significantly contribute to achieving 90-90-90 HIV/TB targets for key populations are being developed. The program is working in Bulgaria (Sofia), Georgia (Tbilisi), Kazakhstan (Almaty), Moldova (Balti), Ukraine (Odesa).
This year’s International TB Day’s theme is “IT’S TIME”. This slogan is indicating that it is time to end tuberculosis. There is a number of events that will draw attention to this day in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The youth community center “Compass” in Kharkiv, Ukraine will hold a training session on the prevention of TB in one of the schools they work in. Local NGOs in Kazakhstan have been providing tuberculosis screening in the shopping malls and markets before World TB Day and were raising awareness of the disease within the students and migrants.
