Spotlight on TB

TB is the world’s most lethal infectious disease, with over 10 million new cases each year, an estimated 1.8 million deaths annually, and many more at risk for infection and illness.

Data now shows that the world will not meet the targets set to eliminate TB and funding must be substantially increased – from both international and domestic sources to get back on track and achieve the ambitious Global TB targets.

A significant increase for the Global Fund overall is needed and GFAN’s ask for the 6th Replenishment of the Global Fund is for between US$16.8 and 18 billion. Failure to reach this level of funding will have dramatic consequences in terms of achieving global goals and, the impact will be felt disproportionality by key populations.

 

What Happened at the HLM:

The UN High Level Meeting on TB on September 26th was a momentous and historic occasion that we as a community have never had before.   Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to ensure the voices of civil society were heard.  Coming out of the HLM, we have a Political Declaration and commitments that we can hold our governments accountable to.  

A few highlights from the HLM:

  • Registration was over-capacity, with very large numbers of civil society and community members attending in person
  • Over 120 countries registered to make official statements, including 16 Heads of State personally delivering remarks
  • In general, the statements made by countries made it quite clear that there is a lack of knowledge of TB at the highest levels
  • The US announced they would be ‘reprogramming’ US $35 million of existing USAID funding for the development of a performance-based measurement system, as well as an additional US $30 million for India (pending an increase from Congress)
  • The UK pledged £7.5 million to TB Alliance
  • Peru was the only country to mention domestic financing in their official statement
  • Asia-Pacific countries spoke quite a bit about access to medicines
  • Some issues that were not addressed in the plenary sessions were highlighted in the multistakeholder panels, including calls for an independent accountability framework from Bill Gates, Nick Herbert, and others
  • RD Marte from APCASO made an intervention in the multistakeholder panels on behalf of communities and civil society, drawing attention to the Civil Society Statement. You can read her intervention here

Want to know more?

 

Continuing the Momentum

We must continue working together as a united community.  We have a limited timeframe to come up with a plan before we lose the attention we’ve gained.  We need to figure out what accountability is going to look like going forward, and what our role is in holding countries and the global community to account.

Key moments coming up:

  • The Union (October 2018),
  • World TB Day (March 2019),
  • development and finalization of the Accountability Framework with WHO (May 2019),
  • UHC HLM (September 2019),
  • Global Fund Replenishment (October 2019)

 

Recent Reports:

 

GFAN Speakers on TB:

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Recent Articles: