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
29/01/2014
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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24.6 million Euros for TB Vaccine R&D
The TBVI consortium has been granted 24.6 million euros from the European Commission H2020 framework programme (€18.2 mln.) and several institutions as well as national governments outside the EC, among others Switzerland, South Korea and Australia. With this grant the new TBVAC2020 project will be funded, so TBVI can continue its efforts to discover and develop new tuberculosis vaccines.
Dr Nick Drager, TBVI’s Executive Director notes that “these funds will enable us to continue our long standing and effective collaboration with top European laboratories and to add new partners in research and development efforts to innovate and diversify the TB vaccine and biomarker pipeline and to support and accelerate the development of the most promising vaccine candidates through early development stages.”
You can read more about the TBVI consortium's plan for a TB vaccine.
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Lives at stake in Eastern Ukraine
A press release from the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and Alliance Ukraine has made clear that there are growing concerns over the disruption for people living with HIV and tuberculosis in Eastern Ukraine where fighting in the rebel-controlled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk has interrupted crucial medical supplies.
Following a decision by the Ukrainian government to halt supplies to these areas, and with the border now blocked, major stockouts of antiretroviral drugs, opioid substitution therapy (OST) and other life-saving treatments are anticipated by the end of February. More than 300 OST patients in Donetsk and Luhansk have lost access to treatment since the conflict began. A further 550 patients on methadone will run out of drugs imminently if emergency supplies cannot be delivered.Eastern Ukraine has the highest prevalence rates of HIV and TB in the country.
Alliance Ukraine and other stakeholders have been calling on the Ukrainian government to organize a safe corridor for delivery of life-saving medicines with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and have stressed the need to take urgent action to ensure that treatment regimens are not interrupted. The Ukrainian government’s resolution regarding this new humanitarian procedure has been agreed by the key government agencies, technical partners and principal recipients of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grant, and is now awaiting final approval.
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TBEC participates in the National TB Programme Review for Georgia 7-14 November
In November of last year, Safar Naimov had the opportunity to take part in the WHO Review of the National TB programme for TB control in Georgia, representing the TB Europe Coalition. As a former TB patient having undergone treatment in Tajikistan, Safar Naimov is well-placed to evaluate whether the needs of TB patients are being met in Georgia. His involvement in the NTP review marks an important step towards greater involvement of civil society and affected communities in such evaluative processes. Following the trip, for which you can read more details here, the following recommendations were put forward by TBEC:
- Develop a national ACSM Operational Plan with a detailed budget as well as a monitoring and evaluation plan.
- Ensure government co-funding for TBGC in order to allow for SCO engagement.
- Form a central ACSM thematic working group as a central hub of communication and coordination at the NTP. This will serve the purpose of recruiting former TB patients/activists as well as members of TBGC for the national ACSM network.
- Involve former TB patients in stigma reduction and treatment adherence activities by promoting the sharing of experiences and providing psychological support.
- Volunteers are to be mobilized among university students (for academic credit), social workers or former TB patients through small incentive programmes such as transportation vouchers or phone cards.
- Help coordinate NGOs in service delivery all over the country -including breakaway regions – through the MoLHSA.
- World TB Day could be celebrated with patients and community based NGOs by organizing public actions and sports events nationwide.
- Social media is to be used for advocacy and we encourage the creation of a TB in Georgia hashtag. Greater use of new media technologies, in particular web-based and social networking channels is to be prioritized in this context.
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