© Stop TB Partnership
This year's theme for World TB Day, celebrated today, is ‘Stop TB in my lifetime’. It is a very catchy slogan and, most of all, a very ambitious goal. But can we really stop a disease that can be spread by a simple cough or sneeze and has been infecting humans for over 6000 years?
I've recently written here about multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and that is one very important reason to be concerned. Another one is HIV/AIDS: TB is the main infectious killer of people living with HIV/AIDS. This close link between the two diseases means that a failure to stop the spread of MDR-TB could threaten the significant progress that has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
We know that extensive drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) has been reported in 69 countries. However, the problem is the lack of data from some countries, specially in Africa and Asia. XDR-TB is under-reported because very few endemic countries have technical conditions to detect drug resistance. Drug-resistant strains can be easily transmitted, just like ordinary TB, which increases the concern over this global health problem. Not only shorter-course drugs against tuberculosis but also new diagnostic tools are urgently needed! And let's not forget the important role of partnerships between companies, governments and health organizations to ensure that those new treatments and diagnostic tools reach endemic regions.
There are good new on this score: the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics and medical technology company BD announced a collaboration to promote access to early and accurate diagnosis of MDR-TB among HIV patients and other vulnerable populations in India, which represents about 25 percent of TB cases and has the highest number of MDR-TB cases in South East Asia. This is just part of the EXPAND-TB project. This project is a collaboration between the World Health Organization, the Global Laboratory Initiative, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics and the Stop TB Partnership Global Drug Facility. The overall goal is to narrow the huge diagnostic gap in MDR-TB control and diagnose at least 129,000 patients with MDR-TB.
Coming back to the question I made at the beginning: can we really stop TB? It is true the disease has been infecting humans since 4000 B.C. but never before we had the tools and the conditions to fight TB and stop it: the disease can be diagnosed and treated, there are new TB vaccines coming out soon and, for the first time, we made possible to build global interventions to fight TB all over the world. It is in our hands to end TB. We cannot miss this opportunity.
There are good new on this score: the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics and medical technology company BD announced a collaboration to promote access to early and accurate diagnosis of MDR-TB among HIV patients and other vulnerable populations in India, which represents about 25 percent of TB cases and has the highest number of MDR-TB cases in South East Asia. This is just part of the EXPAND-TB project. This project is a collaboration between the World Health Organization, the Global Laboratory Initiative, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics and the Stop TB Partnership Global Drug Facility. The overall goal is to narrow the huge diagnostic gap in MDR-TB control and diagnose at least 129,000 patients with MDR-TB.
Coming back to the question I made at the beginning: can we really stop TB? It is true the disease has been infecting humans since 4000 B.C. but never before we had the tools and the conditions to fight TB and stop it: the disease can be diagnosed and treated, there are new TB vaccines coming out soon and, for the first time, we made possible to build global interventions to fight TB all over the world. It is in our hands to end TB. We cannot miss this opportunity.
read more: World Tuberculosis Day 2012: Stopping Tuberculosis in Our Lifetimes
read more: World TB Day 2012: Ensuring a Treatable Disease Is Actually Treatable
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