World TB Day: WHO steps up initiative to fight deadly diseases

the day before World TB Day, WHO announced that he would expand the scope a five-year initiative to eliminate one of the world’s top infectious killers by 2030.

Tuberculosis mainly affects the lungs, but preventable, treatable and treatable. Although global mortality has fallen by almost 40 per cent since 2000, 1.6 million people die each year from the disease and millions more are affected.

Equal access to services

WHO Director-General’s Flagship Initiative on Tuberculosis was established in 2018 to advance research and expand access to services in support of efforts to end the global epidemic. Now it will be expanded and extended until 2027.

The aim is to scale up quality care for people living with TB through equal access to rapid diagnostics and shorter oral treatment.

Need new tools

WHO has also highlighted the urgent need for investment, especially when developing new vaccinesand proposed the creation of a Council to Accelerate the Development of a Tuberculosis Vaccine.

The only vaccine currently available is over a hundred years old, plus it doesn’t adequately protect youth and adultswhich account for the majority of TB transmissions.

“We need to make the tools that we have accessible to more people. KnifeWe also need new tools.” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a speech in Geneva. “Rising drug resistance is undermining the effectiveness of some drugs used to treat TB,” he added.

Call to action

The flagship initiative aims to stimulate actions and responsibility address the main drivers of the TB epidemic, such as poverty, malnutrition, diabetes, HIV, tobacco and alcohol use, and poor living and working conditions.

WHO and partners also released call to action governments to accelerate the introduction of new oral regimens for drug-resistant TB, which continues to be a pressing public health problem.

The UN General Assembly will meet High-level meeting on tuberculosis in September, which, according to Tedros, “should be turning point in the fight against tuberculosisif the leaders real and long-term liabilities invest in TB control.