A boy holding TB banner, Clicked by Nguyen Viet Tung-Vietnam. Youth movement against TB in Hua Dan primary school, Chang Muong Commune, Muong La, Son La (A remote commune).
Mobilizing youth to end TB
With over a third of the world’s population aged between 10 and 24 years, today’s generation of young people is the largest in human history. As the future leaders and drivers of growth, productivity and innovation, young people are our greatest assets. Investment in their health and wellbeing, as well as harnessing their potential as agents of change, is vital to efforts to end deadly epidemics such as tuberculosis (TB) - that remains the world’s top infectious killer.
Young people between the ages of 15-34 are disproportionately affected and carry among the heaviest burdens of the disease. They are also often the largest population group in developing countries with their role and potential contributing immensely to a nation’s social and economic capital. Enabling their access to care and ensuring their meaningful participation in efforts to end TB at all levels will pave the way to a better, safer and healthier world free of TB. Currently the potential of youth has not been fully harnessed in efforts to end TB.
To address this, in 2019, WHO launched a special youth initiative titled 1+1- to call for youth mobilization to boost the fight to end TB. The initiative aims at advancing engagement with young people and amplifying their voices to end TB. Youth can have a multiplier effect in the fight to end TB, to accelerate progress towards reaching the ambitious 2022 targets of the UN high-level meeting on ending TB, as well as the larger goal of ending TB by 2030, as included in the WHO End TB Strategy and the SDGs. This was followed by a Global Youth Townhall to end TB that culminated in a Youth Declaration to End TB. WHO is working with young people around the world to strengthen their engagement and implement the declaration.
