Governments commitment to roll-out TPT
In September 2018 at the United Nations High Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB, countries signed a Political Declaration, and made a promise to put 30 million people on TB preventive treatment (TPT) by 2022, which includes 6 million PLHIV, 4 million children under five years old and 20 million other household contacts of TB patients.
Dr Suvanand Sahu, Deputy Executive Director, Stop TB Partnership, stressed upon having a sense of urgency to move fast towards ending TB. He sees hope in the Call To Action launched at the TB HIV Symposium for a coordinated HIV and TB response to reach 6 million people living with HIV with tuberculosis preventive treatment. While conceding that the UN High Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB, which happened in September 2018, increased the political attention that TB deserved, Dr Suvanand Sahu emphasised upon three main action points: (i) increasing domestic resources, especially in high TB burden countries (ii) finding those people with TB who have been missed in the past and (iii) making leaders, politicians and heads of countries accountable for the TB response in their areas in terms of key indicators, targets and commitments made.
Ending TB by 2030 will not be possible without addressing this reservoir of people infected with latent TB by providing them with TB preventive treatment (TPT) to substantially reduce the probability of progression from latent TB infection to active TB disease.
Bobby Ramakant - CNS (Citizen News Service)
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