The 49th Union World Conference on Lung Health, held from 24-27 October in The Hague brought together an unprecedented number of stakeholders from the TB community and beyond. The World Health Organization (WHO) organized several meetings and consultations on the side-lines of the conference. Below is a brief roundup of key WHO-led events.
WHO End TB Strategy Summit
The 4th WHO End TB Strategy Summit 2018 took place on 22 and 23 October in The Hague. It brought together National TB Programme Managers and/or Disease Control Directors of the highest TB burden countries, key partners, and WHO country and regional staff.
More than 180 participants considered progress to date and actions to be taken in 2019 towards accelerated action to End TB, including in response to commitments made in the Moscow Declaration to End TB and the political declaration of the UN High Level Meeting on TB.
The largely country group-work deliberations focused particularly on actions focused on key steps in intensified case finding and diagnostic capacity-strengthening; operational steps towards roll-out of new guidance on preventive treatment and planned changes in MDR-TB regimens; strengthening multisectoral accountability and civil society engagement, including following elements of WHO’s draft multisectoral accountability framework for TB; and views on priorities for a global tuberculosis research strategy with country impact.
Challenges and action steps in 2019 were summarized on the key themes and a summary report will be available shortly.
Meeting with Her Imperial Highness Princess Akishino of Japan
Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of the WHO Global TB Programme met with Her Imperial Highness Princess Akishino of Japan on the sidelines of the Union World Conference on Lung Health in The Hague. Dr Kasaeva commended Her Imperial Highness Princess Akishino for her commitment and dedication in supporting efforts to end TB. Very constructive discussions were held especially on the importance of raising public awareness on TB, combating stigma and discrimination, addressing TB in children and gender-related issues.
HIH Princess Akishino is the Patroness of the Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association (JATA) and has been supporting various activities of JATA including mobilizing community response to TB through supporting the Coalition of Anti-TB Women’s Associations.
Events and meetings
Over 100 participants from more than 20 countries joined the 13th Meeting of the PPM Working Group to renew the focus on PPM expansion to close gaps in care and reach all the missing people with TB especially in high burden countries. Global progress and challenges to expanding PPM were discussed with a view to address the persistent global problem of the missed people with TB. Strategies to bring about behaviour change among private providers and those for better governance and sustainable financing of PPM interventions were also intensely deliberated upon. Significantly, a new PPM Roadmap and Landscape Analysis were launched at the meeting, followed by in depth discussions on their adoption and uptake at regional and country level.
Finding the Missing People with TB: overview of progress of the Global Fund Strategic Initiative - 20/21 October
Over 130 participants from countries, partners and civil society came together at the second Strategic Initiative meeting on ‘Finding the Missing People with TB’.The meeting focused on progress achieved in the first year of implementation of the ambitious initiative of the Global Fund to find and treat an additional 1.5 million missing cases of TB by the end of 2019. Organized jointly by WHO with the Global Fund, Stop TB Partnership and USAID, the meeting brought together national TB programme managers and staff from the 13 priority countries, in-country TB technical partners, the Global Fund, Stop TB Partnership, USAID, KNCV, KIT, and other key international partners, as well as representatives from WHO HQ, regional and country offices.
WHO stakeholder consultation to enable implementation of Unitaid supported innovative LTBI and childhood TB projects - 22 October
WHO convened a consultation on 22 October to facilitate the implementation of Unitaid projects targeted at preventing the spread of TB, in populations most at risk of contracting the disease, and to increase TB diagnosis in children. The three projects considered were IMPAACT4TB, TB-SPEED and TB-CaP. The participants of the meeting included Unitaid, grantees of the three Unitaid supported projects and country stakeholders, including national TB programme (NTP) representatives, technical partners and WHO country staff.
Annual meeting of the Child and Adolescent TB Working Group - 24 October
The Child and Adolescent TB Working Group met to share country experiences and global developments over the previous year, including the recently launched Roadmap towards ending TB in children and adolescents. The focus of this meeting was on contact investigation and preventive therapy. It was attended by over 150 participants representing a broad range of stakeholders including paediatricians, NTP managers and childhood TB focal points from the NTP, Maternal and Child Health representatives, technical and financial partners, community TB representatives, and WHO staff from headquarters, Regional and Country offices.
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Meeting for advancing TB research through multi-country research networks - 25 October
On the evening of 25 October, WHO organized a meeting on multi-country research networks and their role in advancing TB research. Representatives of six TB research networks from diverse parts of the world shared their experiences – the West African Regional Network for TB control (WARN-TB, launched in 2015), the European Tuberculosis Research Initiative (ERI-TB, launched in 2016), the BRICS TB Research Network (launched in 2017), the Central African Regional Network for TB control (CARN-TB, launched in 2018), the TB Research Cooperation Network in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (TB-EECA, launched in 2018) and the future Asian-Pacific TB Research and Innovation Network.
People-centred framework, and associated toolkit, for better use of TB data: Evidence-based prioritized action and programmatic planning – a progress update and review consultation - 25 October
WHO held a progress update and consultation on the "People-centred framework" - a framework for people-centred data consolidation and analysis for TB programme planning and prioritization. The concept of the framework and experiences of three countries – Kenya, Ghana and the Philippines, were presented.
In Kenya, the framework was applied to the development of the National Strategic Plan. Ghana applied the framework for sub-national analysis and activity prioritization for applying for funding from the Global Fund with an objective of intensifying efforts to find the missing people with TB. The framework was used in the Philippines to organize the sub-national TB information dashboard and to facilitate discussion for prioritizing technical assistance proposed by partners.
The meeting was attended by over 40 participants, including stakeholders, technical and funding partners, and National TB Programme officials. During the discussion, it was highlighted that the framework encourages the use of available in-country data and evidence to inform TB programme planning and policy discussions, while respecting the country’s planning and policy cycle.
Representatives of Ministries of health, Ministries of Science and Technology, academia, funders, civil society and partners met on 26 October to brainstorm on the potential elements of a global strategy for TB research. This global strategy is to be developed and finalized by WHO in 2018-19, as requested by Member States at the World Health Assembly. Participants discussed and came to mutual understanding of how the strategy can articulate the key needs and potential enablers of TB research.
Meetings with countries and partners
Dr Tereza Kasaeva met with national TB programme managers and other stakeholders from India, Pakistan, Thailand and Viet Nam on the sidelines of the Conference to discuss concrete next steps to implement the Declaration of the UN High Level Meeting on TB. Meetings were also organized with several partners including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CHAI.
The WHO booth at the Union Conference was very busy this year with a great turnout and huge interest. It was a colourful and animated space, where delegates could find copies of the latest essential documents on TB, meet with experts and take selfies.