The WHO Global TB Programme welcomes the Declaration on Combating Antimicrobial Resistance launched by over 80 leading international pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics companies at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland yesterday. The declaration calls on governments to work closely with industry to tackle the rising threat of antimicrobial resistance.
Similar to other diseases, multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) severely compromises patient survival and poses a major threat to ending TB worldwide.
MDR-TB has become a public health crisis in many countries. In 2015, only one in four of the estimated 480,000 new MDR-TB cases were detected and reported to national authorities. Only one in two of these patients was treated successfully, and there were over 100,000 MDR-TB deaths.
The largest numbers of MDR-TB cases are found in China, India and the Russian Federation. The limited number of available medicines to treat drug-resistant TB, their toxicity, high cost, and the need for prolonged treatment are major barriers to scaling up the global response to MDR-TB, called for in the WHO End TB Strategy.
To effectively tackle drug-resistant TB and ultimately end the epidemic, bigger investments in TB research and innovation are urgently needed. In recent years, several pharmaceutical companies have discontinued their TB research and development portfolios.
The companies who signed the Declaration have committed to reducing the development of drug resistance by encouraging better and more appropriate use of new and existing antibiotics, increasing investment in research and development to develop new diagnostics, antibiotics and vaccines, and improve access to high-quality antibiotics for all who need them around the world.
“Unless MDR-TB is confronted head on as part of the global fight against antimicrobial resistance, we risk having an uncontrollable spread of MDR-TB in several countries in the near future,” said Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of WHO’s Global TB Programme. “We hope that the collective action taken by the pharmaceutical industry will provide a much-needed boost for ramping up the fight against MDR-TB and other drug-resistant infections.”
The Declaration is hosted online by the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, commissioned by UK Prime Minister David Cameron in 2014 to address the growing global problem of drug-resistant infections.