On World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, marked March 24, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls for an urgent investment of resources to protect and maintain TB (TB) care and support services for people in need in regions and countries. Tuberculosis is the world’s most deadly infectious disease, with over a million people responsible for the devastating effects of families and communities a year.
Global efforts to combat tuberculosis have saved an estimated 79 million lives since 2000. However, the dramatic and sudden cuts in global health funds currently taking place threaten to reverse these benefits. Increased drug resistance, particularly throughout Europe, and ongoing conflicts across the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, have further exacerbated the most vulnerable situation.
Yes under the theme! TB: The 2025 campaign of commit, investment, delivery, and world nodopathy highlights the rally’s cry for urgency and accountability and hope. “The massive benefits the world has made over the past 20 years on TB are now at risk as it begins to disrupt access to services for the prevention, screening and treatment of TB patients,” says Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “However, we cannot give up on the specific commitments that world leaders made at the UN General Assembly 18 months ago. We will accelerate our work to finish TB. Who is working with all donors, partners and affected countries to reduce the impact of funding cuts and find innovative solutions.”
Funding: Threat to global tuberculosis efforts
Early reports on who reveals that severe disruptions in TB responses will be seen in the highest burning countries following the cuts in funding. Countries in the WHO Africa region have experienced the biggest impact, followed by countries in the WHO Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific region. Twenty-seven countries face malfunctions in the tuberculosis reaction, with catastrophic consequences such as:
A lack of human resources that undermine service provision. Diagnostic services are severely confused, delayed detection and treatment. Collapse of data and surveillance systems, compromises in disease tracking and management. It leads to community engagement efforts such as discovery of active cases, screening, contact tracing, degradation, and deterioration, leading to delayed diagnosis and increased risk of transmission.
Nine countries report TB drug procurement and supply chain failures, continuity of risk treatment, and patient outcomes.
Funding for 2025 will further exacerbate the already existing funding shortage for the global TB response. In 2023, only 26% of the US$22 billion annually needed for TB prevention and care was available, leaving a major shortage. Tuberculosis research is in crisis, receiving only one-fifth of its annual US$5 billion target in 2022. It places emphasis on advances in diagnosis, treatment and vaccines. While it is a major initiative to accelerate the development of tuberculosis vaccines through the Tuberculosis Vaccine Accelerator Council, progress is taking risks without urgent financial commitments.
Joint statement with civil society
In response to the urgent challenges threatening TB services, the Director-General on Tuberculosis and the Civil Society Task Force issued a conclusive statement. The joint statement released this week calls for immediate coordinated efforts from governments, global health leaders, donors and policymakers to prevent further disruption. The statement outlines five important priorities:
Respond urgently to the disruption in tuberculosis services and ensure that your responses are consistent with the scale of the crisis. Ensure sustainable domestic funding and ensure uninterrupted and equitable access to tuberculosis prevention and care. Protecting critical tuberculosis services, including access to life-saving drugs, diagnosis, treatment and social protection, along with cross-sector collaboration. It promotes alliances between civil society, NGOs, donors and professional bodies to establish or reinvigorate national cooperation platforms and tackle the challenges. Enhanced monitoring and early warning systems to assess real-time impacts and detect disruptions early.
“This urgent call is timely and underscores the need for prompt and critical action to maintain global tuberculosis progress and prevent potential set-offs that can occur in our lives,” said Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, director of the WHO global program at TB and Lung Health. “Investing in the termination of tuberculosis is not only a moral obligation, but also an economic necessity. Every dollar spent on prevention and treatment will result in an estimated USD 43 in economic benefits.”
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New Guidance on Tuberculosis and Lung Health
One solution to combat growing resource constraints is driving the integration of tuberculosis and lung health within primary health care as a sustainable solution. The WHO has outlined key behaviors across the care continuum, and outlined new technical guidance focusing on prevention, early detection of tuberculosis and comorbidities, optimized management at first contact, and patient follow-up. This guidance also promotes the better use of existing health systems that address shared risk factors such as overcrowding, tobacco, nutritional deficiency and environmental pollutants.
Through a unified strategy, it aims to strengthen global responses and promote permanent improvements in health outcomes by addressing TB determinants along with infectious and non-communicable diseases, lung status, and disorders.
It will appeal to everyone, individuals, communities, society, donors, government, and others, and play a role in ending tuberculosis. Without coordinated action from all stakeholders, the tuberculosis response will be decisively reduced, reverse decades of progress, endangering millions of lives, and threatening health safety.
