PRESS CONFERENCE BY NEW SPECIAL ENVOY TO STOP TUBERCULOSIS

 

Instead of continuing to write off tuberculosis as a marginalized illness of the developing world’s poor, the global community must step up efforts to treat and halt the global spread of the killer disease, Jorge Sampaio, the former President of Portugal and the United Nations Secretary-General’s newly appointed Special Envoy to Stop Tuberculosis (TB), said Wednesday, during a Headquarters press conference.

“Civilization cannot afford 5,000 people dying every day of a curable disease,” Mr. Sampaio said.  TB was the leading cause of death among people infected with HIV.  Every year, some 300,000 people were infected with a multi-drug resistant strain of TB.  In Africa, where TB claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people annually, health ministers had last August declared the disease a state of emergency.

However, TB had largely been forgotten about in many parts of the world, since its prevalence and incidence rates began declining in the 1960s, Mr. Sampaio said, noting that scientists had not developed a new drug to treat the disease since 1968.  TB’s social stigma had caused many communities to deny its very existence.

Mr. Sampaio pledged to use his political clout to generate public awareness about TB and to persuade world leaders to fully fund and implement the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2006-2015 Global Plan to Stop TB, which aimed to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halting and beginning to reverse the incidence of the disease by 2015.

He would also advocate for the Stop TB Partnership, a WHO-led global coalition of international organizations, Governments, civil society groups and private-sector donors, who worked to ensure universal access to treatment, develop new therapies and reduce the inequitable socio-economic toll of the disease.

Last week, Mr. Sampaio met in Geneva with WHO and Partnership leaders to discuss strategies to shore up support for the fight against TB.  In the coming months, he will participate in meetings with regional leaders and civil society organizations to develop strategies and action plans.

TB treatment, he noted, was highly effective and helped extend the lives of people living with HIV.  In 2003, 82 per cent of those diagnosed with TB were treated and cured.  However, many TB cases went undetected.  In 2004, only 53 per cent of people with infectious TB were diagnosed, falling short of the WHO target of 70 per cent.  Twenty-two countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, were the hardest hit by the disease.

Responding to a reporter’s question about the funding gap for TB treatment and education, Mr. Sampaio said current funding levels were inadequate, and that a big push was needed to mobilize Governments, regional authorities and civil society to sink more funds, particularly into regions with high TB rates.

As to whether there was an emerging trend among political leaders to move into the health field, he said he hoped that indeed more and more ex-Presidents and high-level officials would use their political expertise to advance public health agendas.

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For information media • not an official record