Ukraine, Sudan conflicts fuel alarming surge in TB

Listen to this article

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Top U.N. officials, health industry leaders and activists demanded Monday that the world invest more to develop new vaccines and tackle a surge in tuberculosis fueled by the impact of COVID-19 and conflicts including Ukraine and Sudan.

At a crowded meeting punctuated by activists chanting “End TB Now,” there were speeches from many TB sufferers and a keynote by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, who spoke about how her father passed on tuberculosis to her 2-year-old sister: TB claimed his life at the age of 60, but her sister, now 50, is a survivor.

Tuberculosis is the biggest infectious disease killer in the world today, taking the lives of around 4,400 people every day around the world including 700 children, Dr. Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership, said ahead of Monday’s hearing to prepare for a high-level meeting on Sept. 22 during the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.

The U.N. deputy secretary-general said global response efforts to tuberculosis have saved 74 million lives since 2000, but over 10.5 million people got the disease and an estimated 6.1 million died in 2021, and it is now the leading cause of death for people with HIV.

The TB epidemic is driven by a host of factors including poverty, malnutrition and HIV and disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in all countries, Mohammed said, stressing that these drivers of the disease must be addressed.

She said $22 billion is needed to provide all people diagnosed with TB access to quality treatment by 2027 along with access to health and social benefits so they don’t suffer financial hardship – and an additional $5 billion a year is needed for TB research and innovation.

“We can develop safe and effective tuberculosis vaccines and simple one-stop shops for quality tests and care,” Mohammed said. “This would be a game-changer.”

U.N. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a video address to the meeting that COVID-19 “turned our world upside-down” for three years, and in addition to the millions of deaths it deprived millions of people of essential health services including for tuberculosis.

“Conflicts across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East have made life-saving services even harder to access for people living with TB,” he said. “These challenges have been a setback in the fight against TB, reversing some of the significant gains we have made over the past 20 years in expanding access to prevention, testing and treatment.”