VATIS UPDATE Article

Health ministers from countries in WHO South-East Asia Region which bear half the global TB burden, and WHO have signed a Call for Action for Ending TB, pledging to scale-up efforts and implement adequately funded, innovative, multisectoral and comprehensive measures to achieve the global target to end the disease by 2030. In 2015, TB caused nearly 800,000 deaths in the Region while an estimated 4.74 million new cases were reported.

Six of the Region’s countries – Bangladesh, Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand – are among the 30 high TB burden countries globally. While countries in the region have been making efforts against TB, the annual decline in TB incidence – which is currently between 1.5% and 2% – is insufficient and needs to be scaled up to at least 10-15% for the countries and the region to meet the end TB targets. The global targets seek to reduce TB mortality by 90% and incidence by 80% by 2030.

Committing to take exceptional action and high-impact interventions as per the call for action, the Health ministers agreed to lead the implementation of the national TB response through an empowered body reporting to the highest levels of government. The call for action stresses upon increasing government and partner budgetary allocations to enable national TB plans to be fully funded. The investments in ending TB are expected to give huge returns, with more than 11 million lives expected to be saved across the region by 2035.