World TB Day 2022
Written by Vinny Wooding
In 2015, the international community came together to agree the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - a set of stretching goals to be achieved by 2030 which cover a plethora of public policy issues. One of the most important goals, SDG 3.3, calls on the international community to ‘end the epidemics of AIDS, TB, Malaria, neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases’. With only 8 years left to achieve these targets, it’s vital the international community acts now to end these epidemics.
2022 is a particularly important year in the fight against global TB. The Global Fund, the world’s largest financier of TB programmes and services, is being replenished in September and has requested $18bn over the next three years from international partners. Additionally, much of the ground for the 2023 UN High-Level Meeting on TB is being laid in 2022, so it is vital that we lay a solid foundation to take the fight to TB over the coming years.
World TB Day 2022 was the first opportunity that many TB stakeholders had to meet in person since the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, it served as an exciting opportunity to regain momentum in the fight to eradicate TB. The All Party Parliamentary Group for Global TB hosted a reception in Parliament to launch a new report, ‘A Stocktake on TB’, which drew attention to the positive steps that the UK Government have taken domestically to drive down TB rates within England. Internationally, the UK can and should be doing more to tackle the global TB epidemic, and the report called on the Government to: restore the 0.7% GNI target for ODA, increase R&D funding for TB and make a substantial pledge to the upcoming Global Fund replenishment.
The reception also heard from TB stakeholders including Dr Jessica Potter, co-Chair of the UKAPTB, and Scott Boule from the Global Fund. Dr Potter discussed the holistic importance of tackling TB domestically and internationally, using her own experience of treating TB within the UK, to call on Parliamentarians to increase financial support for the eradication of TB. Scott Boule highlighted the role of the Global Fund as the world’s largest financier of TB programmes and called on Parliamentarians to pressure the Government to commit a substantial pledge during the latest replenishment round.
Following the reception, the APPG’s Co-Chair, Virendra Sharma MP, secured a debate in Westminster Hall to discuss World TB Day. During the debate, Foreign Office Minister Vicky Ford MP announced that the Government intended to invest £6m into TB Reach to improve early diagnostic tools and to create new, innovative tools to tackle TB globally. The Minister also said that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office were considering the Global Fund’s investment case and would be making a decision on the UK’s pledge over the coming months.
Whilst World TB Day often acts as a nexus for those involved in the fight to eradicate TB globally, it’s vital that we do not arrest our momentum over the coming months. TB is still the world’s second deadliest infectious disease behind Covid - with 1.5m deaths and over 10m cases in 2020 alone. If we want to see systematic change in the rates of TB deaths globally, it is imperative that we continue to advocate for greater levels of funding for TB programmes, vaccines, R&D and health system strengthening.
