The Union Ambassador, actress Claire Forlani, stressed that meaningful involvement of the affected communities was crucial to fighting infections like TB and Covid-19. However, the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the absence of interest and care from those communities most affected by the virus.
"Is it any wonder that vaccine inequity is front and center," said Forlani. "The failure to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries and to end tuberculosis are two sides of the same coin - a devaluation of human life in poor countries."
Paediatric TB doctor Uvi Naidoo described his experience of surviving TB a few years ago and two bouts of Covid-19 in 2020.
Ten years earlier, It took a little over three years of treatment until he was cured of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), but not without sustaining numerous life-threatening complications. Ten years later, Naidoo acquired severe Covid-19 twice from patients he treated within the past year.
"While admitted for Covid-19, I saw patients' demise from Covid-19, medical colleagues break down from sheer emotional and physical fatigue and watched my whole family admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) for Covid-19 management, losing my dear father," shared Naidoo.
"We've all been humbled. There have been far too many gaps for too long and too many continue to suffer. From the political realm to basic sciences and clinical bedside, it is high time we all show we care. It is time to roll up our sleeves in service to those that really need us."
The conference takes place against the backdrop of ongoing Covid-19 vaccine inequity, with the pandemic continuing to impact the delivery of TB services in many low- and middle-income countries. Findings from the recently released Global TB Report 2021 show that pandemic has reversed years of progress in providing essential TB services and reducing TB disease burden, putting global TB targets further off-track. The most obvious impact on TB is a large global drop in the number of people newly diagnosed with TB. The number of people newly diagnosed with TB fell from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020 - a fall of 18%. 16 countries accounted for 93% of this global reduction of 1.3 million, with India (41%), Indonesia (14%) and the Philippines (12%) topping the list. All these three countries are TB high burden nations worldwide.
Reduced access to TB diagnosis and treatment has resulted in an increase in TB deaths in 2020. There were 1.3 million TB deaths among HIV-negative people (up from 1.2 million in 2019) and an additional 214,000 among HIV-positive people (up from 209,000 in 2019).
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