WHO applauds TB control efforts

WHO applauds TB control efforts, but says much more is needed

Kuching, Malaysia, 12 March 2007- The World Health Organization (WHO) today said that countries in the Western Pacific Region have made good progress in the fight against tuberculosis (TB), but the battle is far from over.

"As a Region, we have achieved the global targets set for 2005. We now face the challenge of making an even greater impact on the TB burden by meeting the regionaltargets for 2010," said Dr Pieter van Maaren, Regional Adviser for Stop TB programme in WHO's Regional Office for the Western Pacific.

WHO and its Member States had set a 2005 regional target of detecting at least 70% of TB cases, to cure at least 85% of those detected and to achieve full coverage with DOTS, the world health body's recommended strategy for TB control. These interim targets were set as a means to eventually meet the 2010 goal of reducing the prevalence and deaths due to TB by half, compared to the 2000 levels. The Western Pacific Region is the first and only WHO Region to have achieved the 2005 targets.

TB control efforts in the Region were intensified subsequent to the declaration of a TB crisis in 1999. WHO considerably scaled up its technical assistance to countries, with increased funding to countries mainly coming from the Australian Agency for International Development; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Government of Japan, the United States Agency for International Development and the World Bank.

“Despite the good progress made in recent years, over 3.5 million TB cases and nearly
300 000 deaths still occur in the Region every year. We clearly still have a lot of work to do before we can meet the goal we have set for ourselves," cautioned Dr van Maaren, urging countries to step up efforts even further. Most countries face significant constraints to further progress in TB control to achieve the 2010 goal. Among other factors, these include limited access to and quality of DOTS services, multidrug-resistant TB, HIV-associated TB epidemics, inadequate engagement of all care providers, lack of adequate human resources and other health systems weaknesses.

An estimated one quarter of the global burden of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is in the Western Pacific Region, with 140 000 cases in China alone. Reports of extensively drug-resistant TB emerged in 2006 and have been documented in two countries in the Region—the Republic of Korea and the Philippines. TB-HIV co-infection is a major challenge in Cambodia and Papua New Guinea, the two countries in the Region with a generalized HIV epidemic. In many countries, TB patients continue to be managed outside DOTS programmes, often with inadequate or unnecessary treatment. Affected countries are now addressing these issues through programmatic management of MDR-TB, and by implementing collaborative TB-HIV activities and public-private mix DOTS approaches.

"In settings such as in Singapore and Malaysia where TB and HIV share common risk factors, TB-HIV co-infection is of increasing concern," said Dr Han Tieru, WHO Representative in Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore. "We cannot control one without controlling the other. So, we must rapidly scale up TB-HIV collaborative activities through formally established mechanisms and plans."

Representatives of health ministries from eight countries, TB experts and partners are attending a meeting from 12 to 14 March 2007 in Kuching to review the progress made by individual countries as well as the Region as a whole, and to identify areas that need further strengthening or prioritization to achieve the 2010 TB goal.

ENDS

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