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An informal advocacy alliance that shares a commitment to raising awareness of tuberculosis and to increasing the political will to control the disease through the WHO Europe Region and worldwide.
TB EUROPE COALITION NEWSFLASH
04/11/2014
The TBEC newsletter brings you news items, information about upcoming events and stories from the region every month. We hope that you will find this newsletter interesting, and we hope that it will inspire you to share stories from your own work.
To become a member of the TB Europe Coalition or to share your work, please email Fanny Voitzwinkler at fvoitzwinkler@ghadvocates.org.
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TBEC meets and carries out advocacy workshop with key TB stakeholders in Armenia
A few weeks ago, members of the TB Europe Coalition steering committee took part in a field visit to Armenia in order to: understand in greater detail the challenges for advocacy organisations working on TB or related areas; provide an advocacy workshop for local NGOs in Armenia and to further involve Armenian NGOs in future TBEC activities.
The trip was a great opportunity to explore the challenges that exist in Armenia. These included a lack of local CSOs working in TB care, problems around case detection, the sustainability of financing TB care and control and issues of labour migration. The sustainability of financing is a critical issue across the region with the phasing out of key external donors. However, the visit did instill a sense of hope given the commitment of the Ministry of Health to start procuring all first-line drugs within the year. You can read more on our visit, including more on our advocacy workshop and a detailed overview of challenges by visiting our blog here.
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Economic Growth and TB in the context of the BRICS
TB is a disease that all five of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries are currently battling with. In fact, these gie countries alone jointly bear 56% of the estimated global TB burden. All are all also countries with impressive growth rates. Thus, it is suggested that BRICS initiatives will make or break international efforts to curb TB levels.
There are commonalities that exist between the BRICS. These include concentrated epidemics in prisoners, sex workers and refugees along with social inequalities within countries between rural and urban communities and the rich and poor. However, there are also certain specificities. For example, South Africa is largely plagued by high tuberculosis-HIV coinfection rates, Brazil faces more standard variants of TB and coinfection is rare. Russia struggles with high prevalence of MDR-TB and TB-HIV coinfection among vulnerable groups, especially prisoners, migrants, and people who inject drugs. You can read more on TB in BRICS on our blog by clicking here.
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Is sustainable domestic financing of the TB response a reality in Eastern Europe and Central Asia?
In 2014 the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria started implementing its new funding model (NFM). The NFM aims to re-allocate its resources away from middle-income countries towards those with the highest burdens of disease and the least ability to pay. For the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) – the single most-affected region in the world by the spread of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) – a loss of eligibility for Global Fund funding is bad news.
The TB Europe Coalition has undertaken a piece research assessing what experts and individuals across the region think of the potential Global Fund, along with other donors, phasing out. This research will be launched in the new year. In the meantime, certain parts of the research, including commentary from across the region, have been featured in an Aidspan article. This highlights that, in essence, people are concerned that this phasing out could worsen the TB and HIV situation if domestic governments and the EU do not take action. For a more detailed overview, you can access the article here.
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TB Europe Coalition at the Union World Conference on Lung Health and TB!
Last week, several members of the TB Europe Coalition attended the 45th World Conference on Lung Health and TB. This years theme was 'Community Driven Solutions for the Next Generation' and so it was most definitely the place for us. Throughout the week, we produced several blogs which if, like me, you were unable to be in two places at once or just couldn't attend, I'd encourage you to read:
Changing the face of TB through the involvement of communities: This blog takes a look at the TBEC-WHO facilitated session, Community-driven soluations to the MDR-TB epidemic in the European Region. Highlights included a moving speech from former MDR-TB patient, Safar Naimov, and the Russian NTP recognising that civil society has greater access to patients than the government.
ACTION applauds signing of the Barcelona Declaration on TB: TB Europe Coalition joined our ACTION colleagues in applauding the signing of the Barcelona Declaration last week. Parliamentarians from across nine countries, including the UK and France, signed the Declaration. TBEC will now work to ensure representation from across EECA.
TB and the Poor: Time to smooth out global inequalities: This blog assesses the encouraging remarks of the new Indian Minister of Health and highlights the need for others to take note and to start driving down terrible TB statistics.
Ringing the alarm bells: worrying trends for TB: The Stop Tb Paternship hosted their all day meeting on the Monday of Conference. A range of topics were discussed, including the need to advocate for improved action on TB in Europe. We also heard from a passionate MDR-TB survivor as well as a campaign called KICK TB-HIV that it is hoped will be transported to Russia in time for the 2018 World Cup.
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REPORT LAUNCH: Falling Short: A Civil Society Perspective of the Response to M/XDR-TB in the European Region
Last week, the TB Europe Coalition launched the report, Falling Short: A Civil Society Perspective of the Response to Multi & Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (M/XDR-TB) in the European Region. Progress in involving civil society in national TB programmes across the European region is falling short. As 2015 is quickly approaching, the reportfinds that only one of the eight indicators related to the community aspects of the Consolidated Action Plan to Prevent and Combat M/XDR-TB 2011-2015 (MAP) has been met.
Endorsed by the 53 Member States of the WHO European Region three years ago, the MAP aimed to contain the spread of M/XDR-TB by achieving universal access to prevention, diagnosis and treatment in all Member States by 2015. The MAP has been providing clear recommendations to countries on improving the involvement of civil society in TB programmes.‘Falling Short: A Civil Society Perspective of the Response to Multi & Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (M/XDR-TB) in the European Region’ assesses the progress made to ensure the involvement of civil society in the M/XDR-TB response among the high priority and high burden countries of the Region. You can read the full report press release, including commentary from TBEC members, here. |
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LAUNCH OF THE 2014 GLOBAL TB REPORT: Is Tuberculosis becoming the world's deadliest communicable disease?
On 22nd October, the WHO launched their latest Global TB Report. The Tuberculosis Europe Coalition is deeply concerned by the increase in TB cases and deaths disclosed today by the 2014 Global TB Report and calls on the European Union to increase its political and financial commitment to fight this disease in Europe and worldwide.
The TB Europe Coalition calls on the European Union (EU), as the strongest economic and political actor in the European region and the first development aid donor in the world to:
- use the opportunity of the upcoming Latvian Presidency of the EU during the first semester of 2015 to foster political commitment and take urgent action against the TB and MDR-TB epidemic across the WHO Europe region;
- commit adequate resources from its different financial instruments to support the fight against TB, including funding for research and development into new drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines for TB.
You can read our full assessment of the WHO report here.
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Lithuania hosts a briefing on MDR-TB in Europe for EU member states
On 10 October, prominent speakers were invited to the Lithuanian Permanent Representation to the EU to brief Health Attachés of the different member states’ representations in Brussels on the issue of Tuberculosis and Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis in Europe. WHO Europe, the ECDC, the STOP TB Partnership, the TB Europe Coalition, the European Commission and 10 member states (France, Estonia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Belgium, Latvia and Lithuania) were present to discuss the topic and potential for future EU action.
Several key topics were addressed during the meeting, including MDR-TB in the region, treatment success rates, the role of donors and the upcoming Latvian Presidency of the European Union. For a more detailed assessment, take a look at our blog.
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