Partners, colleagues and friends,
Good morning, and welcome to this virtual workshop on “Advancing Research and Innovation to Accelerate Momentum towards Ending TB in the WHO South-East Asia Region.”
Tuberculosis (TB) remains the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. It is a significant contributor to antimicrobial resistance, posing a major public health challenge. In our South-East Asia Region, in 2003 alone nearly 5 million people developed TB, and close to 600,000 died from the disease.
While TB notifications have recovered to 78% of estimated incidence since the setbacks of COVID-19, we unfortunately are not on track to meet the End TB Strategy goals by 2030.
Achieving the ambitious targets in WHO End TB Strategy requires collaboration to accelerating research and innovation – the third pillar of the Strategy. It requires the adoption and use of new tools, technologies and drugs.
The 2023 UN High-Level meeting on TB recognized this, calling for global funding for TB research and innovation to be increased to US$ 5 billion annually, and prioritized the development of a TB vaccine.
In this regard, I am pleased to note the efforts and activity in our region.
Several basic research studies have been undertaken, including:
phase 3 TB vaccine trials in India
epidemiology surveys such as the ongoing TB prevalence survey in Thailand,
the earlier drug-resistance surveys in Myanmar and Timor-Leste, and
the patient cost survey recently completed in Bangladesh.
We also saw results of RATIONS trial in India, contributing to the global guidance on the impact of nutrition on TB outcomes and TB incidence.
Several ongoing innovations are attempting to reach out to marginalized and vulnerable groups through Active Case Finding and providing affected families economic support to mitigate catastrophic costs.
Myanmar has constituted a UN MMR TB team, for coordination among UN agencies in the particular geopolitical circumstances there.
Finally, the local level expansion of the Nepal’s TB-Free Pallika initiative gives us a noteworthy example of multisectoral collaboration.
As we can see, our region and our Member States are not idle.
However, our progress is uneven. Research and innovation capacity varies across the region, and the results of these efforts are often siloed and unavailable for collaborative use. The rise in drug-resistant forms of TB remain very concerning.
To address this, I recommend four key actions:
First, strengthen public-private partnerships and multisectoral engagement to develop the research ecosystem.
Second, enhance South-South collaboration by aligning regulatory processes for research protocols and products. This will make research replicable and encourage uptake between countries.
Third, improve data sharing to reduce duplication of efforts and enable translation of evidence into policies.
Finally, engage communities throughout the design and implementation of research. This ensures affordable and acceptable products, and on-ground impact.
Above all, it is incumbent upon to ensure equitable access to the benefits of research and innovation, including vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I hope you have vigorous discussions over the next three days as you share your experiences, explore innovations, and advance towards a concrete roadmap forward.
I wish you a productive and successful workshop and look forward to being appraised of the outcomes.
Thank you.