Partners and implementers working in 13 countries with the highest burden of tuberculosis have launched a programme, TB Catalytic Investment initiative, to “find and treat” an extra 1.5 million missing cases of the disease by the end of 2019.
More than 10.4 million people get sick with TB each year. Four in 10 of them do not get any care—not diagnosed, treated or reported—and are considered “missed”.
The result is many will die or continue to be sick and transmit the disease or, if treated with improper drugs, contribute to the growing menace of drug resistance.
At the 48th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Guadalajara, Mexico, partners from WHO, Stop TB Partnership, and the Global Fund and implementers from Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Ukraine, Kenya, Mozambique and India met to support and launch the joint effort to reduce the missed cases of TB.
It is thought the initiative is “critically important” to stopping the spread of TB and to reaching the global goal of ending TB as an epidemic by 2030.
“Urgent action is needed to break the transmission cycle of TB and drug-resistant TB to save millions of lives and achieve the global goal of ending TB as an epidemic by 2030,” said Dr. Eliud Wandwalo, Senior Disease Coordinator, TB, at the Global Fund.
“The longer the delay in finding the missed cases, the longer it will take to reach global targets.”
“This is a great opportunity for all of us to support countries in finding the missing people with TB – people who have been so far left behind in some of the most vulnerable and underserved populations,” said Dr. Sahu Suvanand, Deputy Executive Director of Stop TB Partnership.
Dr. Akramul Islam, responsible for TB and malaria control programs for BRAC, an NGO that implements Global Fund grants in Bangladesh, said private and public health sector providers need to work closer to identify missing cases.
“Despite all our efforts there are still too many missing cases. Without proper diagnosis and treatment of these missing cases, it will not be possible to meet our targets,” Dr. Islam said.
Missing TB cases and drug-resistant TB are major challenges in fighting the disease, and pose a serious threat to global health security. Deaths from drug-resistant TB – when tuberculosis bacteria is resistant to existing medication – now account for about one-third of all antimicrobial resistance deaths worldwide.
The Global Fund is expected to invest up to $190 million to support the effort, which seeks to back a combination of innovative and targeted programs, promote better use of data and evidence and expand the most successful approaches to find more missing cases of TB.
The TB Catalytic Investment initiative includes US$115 million in matching funds designed to support country-led programs. An additional US$10 million Strategic Initiative will be used to help technical partners to develop new tools based on best practices. Finally, a US$65 million multi-country investment will address cross-border programs such as responding to drug-resistant TB among migrant workers, and providing treatment to refugees and internally displaced people.
Among other areas, investments will be used to implement systematic and routine screening among children, prisoners, migrants and people living in urban slums. It will seek to promote better use of diagnostic tools such as X-rays and GeneXpert technology and support a closer engagement between private and public sector providers to accelerate case finding, treatment and prevention.
The Global Fund will also support gender and legal assessments to help remove the main barriers to accessing TB services.
