"We wish to make 2021 the year of tuberculosis," said Indian Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan recently. The need to prioritize TB services during the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be overemphasized, and ACTION partners are doing some amazing work to make sure TB is not forgotten.
"A lot of money was spent for treatment, so the financial pressure increased. If the money could have been saved, we may have eaten better food." Millions of people are pushed into poverty each year due to out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses. How will universal health coverage (UHC) schemes deal with seemingly innocuous health costs for primary care such as medicines, travel, food, and accommodations or lost income due to illness?
One in three people with TB are “missing,” meaning they are either undiagnosed or unreported. That is 3.6 million people whose quality of care — if they received care at all — is simply unknown. In September 2018, heads of state committed to finding and treating all people with TB, including these missing millions, with a goal of diagnosing and treating 40 million people with TB from 2018 to 2022. To find the missing millions with TB, governments, civil society, affected communities, and the private sector must work together with global donors to take 6 actions prescribed by ACTION — as shown in our new TB accountability tool.
In the early months of 1993, there was frenetic activity within the Geneva headquartered WHO’s Communicable Diseases program, to get Tuberculosis designated as a Global Emergency. Fast forward 25 years – it is 2018: Tagged the world largest TB burden country, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has committed to India eliminating TB by 2025; and at last, TB had a special UN High Level Meeting on September 27th. (This op-ed is re-posted from the UN Inter Press on September 28.)
In all nine World Tuberculosis (TB) Day advocacy campaigns I have participated in, advocacy groups have shared the same dark figures and told the same devastating stories leading to TB becoming the world’s leading infectious disease killer for the past three years. Every year, the number of people who got sick grew and the death toll rose. No one seemed to pay too much attention—until now.
Although good health is the foundation for individuals, communities, and countries to thrive, a 2015 study by the World Health Organization and the World Bank estimated that 400 million people worldwide lack access to at least one of seven essential health services, ranging from pregnancy care to clean water. Despite much progress under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), from 2000 to 2015, much more needs to be done to give all people equal access to health. ACTION’s policy paper, Progress in Peril? The Changing Landscape of Global Health Financing examines the global health landscape in the face of imminent shifts in where and how global health funding is available to support low- and middle-income countries.
A blog from our intern Morgan on one expert's view on using innovation to curb TB's deadly spread.
In this video interview, American Doctor Jyoti Mathad describes how screening for tuberculosis in pregnant women can save lives in India.