News archive 2008

3 June 2008 -- Geneva -- The Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum and the Lilly MDR-TB Partnership have launched a new toolkit that aims to boost the involvement of South African companies in tackling the tuberculosis (TB) crisis.

The toolkit comes as a response to an emerging threat of TB/HIV co-infections and drug-resistant strains of the disease in South Africa and will provide concrete guidelines to help companies rapidly increase their TB control programmes by adopting a joint approach to tackling TB and HIV and catalysing effective public-private partnerships to facilitate successful patient and programme management.

Link to Press release
Link to toolkit

14 May -- Geneva -- The World Medical Association and Eli Lilly and Company have announced that they will intensify their collaboration on fighting drug-resistant TB. Lilly has provided the association with a a grant of $998,773 to provide physicians with interactive online training on MDR-TB.

The purpose of this online training is to help physicians use the latest international guidelines and treatment protocols for MDR-TB care in their daily work. A new toolkit will also be developed for physicians on how to manage TB in the workplace. This will be produced with the World Economic Forum for use in China and South Africa.

Press release

13 May 2008 -- Berkeley, California - Dr Marcos Espinal, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership, today received the 2007 Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award from the University of California, Berkeley. The award, conferred on Dr Espinal during Berkeley's commencement ceremony, honours an alumnus who is a native, citizen, and resident of a nation other than the United States of America, and who has a distinguished record of service to his or her country. It is one of the most prestigious honours conferred by the Berkeley campus. Dr Espinal completed his master’s and doctoral degrees in public health at Berkeley.

6 May 2008 -- Cairo -- The first lady of Egypt, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, was a speaker at the opening ceremony of the 14th Stop TB Coordinating Board Meeting, which coincided with the launch of a Regional Stop TB Partnership for the Eastern Mediterranean. In her remarks, Mrs Mubarak welcomed the initiative, which she said promised to be extremely beneficial. "I call on all people of influence and countries of the world to embrace a 'Culture of Giving' for such a noble cause - for it requires our full support and commitment," she said.

In her remarks, Irene Koek, Chair of the Board, noted that this is the first Coordinating Board held in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, and thanked Stop TB partners for their work in Egypt and the region. "The Stop TB Partnership is strongly committed to working together with Egypt and the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region to strengthen the fight against TB," she said.

In the evening, the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean hosted a gala to celebrate WHO's 60th anniversary and the launch of the new regional Stop TB Partnership.

Press release on the launch of the Regional Partnership

25 April 2008 Chiang Mai, Thailand - As a follow-up to a thematic session focusing on TB/HIV, the UNAIDS Coordinating Board today declared TB an urgent threat and called on member states to deliver integrated TB and HIV services that provide adequate TB infection control in HIV care settings. The Board also called on the international community, including governments, to address the resource gap for the prevention and treatment of TB in people living with HIV through its inclusion in the broader development agenda.

Read the decisions, recommendations and conclusions

10 April 2008 -- Islamabad -- Stop TB Ambassador Anna Cataldi today concluded a twelve-day visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the aim of spurring greater commitment to TB control in both countries.

In Kabul Ms Cataldi presided over a consultative workshop, Voicing for the Unheard-Women & TB. The workshop, an initiative of the Ministry of Public Health and WHO Afghanistan, focused on the high proportion of women among people with TB in the country. In the concluding session Ms Cataldi called for greater support by national and international partners for confronting TB in Afghanistan.

Read the whole story

Street events, lectures and rallies were among the many events held all over the world on or around World TB Day 2008. And the slogan for the 2008-2009 campaign "I am stopping TB" was on display everywhere on banners and posters tailored to local tastes and concerns.

A selection of photos submitted by Stop TB partners is now available in a photo gallery. Information about events, posters and other materials will be posted on the World TB Day website.

World TB Day is an occasion to urge action to stop tuberculosis, a disease which still kills an appalling 4,000 people every day. The man-made multi-drug resistant strain and its even more lethal form, extensively drug-resistant TB, are both spreading.

If we are to prevent a virtually untreatable tuberculosis epidemic, we must tackle the roots of the problem: poor services, poor supplies, poor prescribing and poor use of drugs.

That is why the theme of this year’s Day is "I am Stopping TB". This is a fight that can be won only with the collective commitment of millions of individuals – donors and researchers, doctors and health care workers, patients and family members.

Read full statement in all six UN languages

World TB Day is a time for reflection and to recognize that we need patience and forbearance. TB cannot be conquered quickly--it is a long journey we have undertaken. I know our partners have the endurance to continue.

I am grateful to all countries' National TB Programme Managers (NTPs) and to the Stop TB Partners for their hard work on getting TB diagnosis and treatment to ever-expanding numbers of people who need them. We know you will keep working towards detection of even more cases, in part by expanding successful advocacy, communication and social mobilization activities.

Read full statement.

The New York Stock Exchange highlighted World TB Day on 24 March by inviting Dr Jorge Sampaio, the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to Stop TB, and Stop TB Partners Edward J. Ludwig, Chairman, President and CEO of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), and Dr Giorgio Roscigno, CEO of FIND (Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics) to ring the closing bell.

Earlier on the same day, Dr Sampaio, along with senior representatives from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Global Health Council, FIND, and BD participated in a roundtable discussion at Columbia University under the theme of "TB Today: Old Enemy, New Hurdles". About 100 people attended the event, which was moderated by John Rennie, of the Scientific American.

Mr Rennie summarized the event by describing the TB movement with two words: urgency and dignity. All of the panelists agreed that 2008 is the year to step up advocacy efforts around implementation of the Global Plan to Stop TB.


Click here for footage of the NYSE closing bell

Click here for full webcast of the roundtable discussion

17 March 2008 -- Geneva -- The pace of the progress in controlling the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic slowed slightly in 2006, says the Global tuberculosis control 2008. The new data released today show a slowdown in the progress on diagnosing people with TB in 2006 compared to the previous five years.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, Dr Jorge Sampaio, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Stop TB, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot, Global Fund Executive Director Professor Michel Kazatchkine and WHO Stop TB Department Director Dr Mario Raviglione participated in a press conference at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, where the report was launched.

News release on the TB report

17 March 2008 -- Famed football star Luis Figo marked World TB Day on Monday by raising awareness about TB with a group of high school students at Hackney Free & Parochial C of E School in London. Afterwards, Figo and these young aspiring athletes played a penalty shoot-out, with the support of the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to Stop TB and former President of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio. The day was marked by the launch of a poster campaign featuring Figo
as a celebrity spokesman for this year's World TB Day campaign featuring the slogan I am stopping TB. Fabrica, Benetton’s research center on communication, developed the campaign on a pro-bono basis as a partner of the Stop TB Partnership.

Kempinski Hotels are providing their support by distributing the Figo posters in postcard format in each guest room in its hotels worldwide. The postcards include facts and information about tuberculosis, its cures and how the Stop TB campaign aims to eliminate TB. Kids Clubs operated directly by participating hotels will also have the Figo Educational Comic Book available for children to read after its launch later this year. At the same time, Kempinski will launch an educational drive for staff in its hotels.

11 March 2008 -- London -- The Global Health Initiative (GHI) of the World Economic Forum has launched a report entitled "Tackling Tuberculosis: The Business Response" which provides an overview of the threat posed by tuberculosis to the private sector and makes recommendations for the private sector in the global context.

The report is based on an analysis of responses to questions on TB in the World Economic Forum’s annual Executive Opinion Survey (EOS). The EOS forms part of the Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report, which is intended to assist business leaders and policy-makers in understanding the drivers of, and impediments to, competitiveness in their countries.

"This report makes a persuasive case for why businesses can gain economically by assessing the risk of TB in their communities, protecting their employees from the disease and ensuring that all employees in whom TB is detected receive prompt and appropriate treatment," said Dr Maros Espinal, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership. "The report offers an additional and no less compelling rationale for businesses to engage in the fight against TB: doing their part as good citizens. At a time when businesses--from family-run manufacturers to multinational corporations--are acknowledging their social responsibilities, engaging in the fight against TB represents a sound investment in society and its future."

The Global Health Initiative (GHI) was launched by Kofi Annan at the Annual Meeting 2002 in Davos. The GHI’s mission is to engage businesses in public-private partnerships to tackle HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria and Health Systems.

26 February 2008 - Washington DC /Geneva - Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has been recorded at the highest rates ever, according to a new report that presents findings from the largest survey to date on the scale of drug resistance in tuberculosis.

The WHO Stop TB Department report, Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance in the World, is based on information collected between 2002 and 2006 on 90 000 TB patients in 81 countries. It also found that extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a virtually untreatable form of the respiratory disease, has been recorded in 45 countries.

The report also found a link between HIV infection and MDR-TB. Surveys in Latvia and Donetsk, Ukraine found nearly twice the level of MDR-TB among TB patients living with HIV compared with TB patients without HIV.

Based on analysis of the survey data, WHO estimates there are nearly half a million new cases of MDR-TB--about 5% of the total nine million new TB cases--worldwide each year.

Press release

4 February 2008 - Cape Town/Worcester, South Africa -- Dr. Marcos Espinal, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership, toured the primary field site and laboratory facilities of the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) of the University of Cape Town (UCT) today, meeting with researchers and clinical trial volunteers.

Hosted by SATVI Director Professor Gregory Hussey, Dr Espinal was accompanied by Dr. Jerald C. Sadoff, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, a non-profit developer of TB vaccines based in the United States. SATVI is working in partnership with Aeras to conduct clinical trials of new vaccines for tuberculosis at the SATVI TB vaccine research site in Worcester, South Africa, the most advanced tuberculosis vaccine study site in the world.

"The work being conducted by SATVI to develop a new vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) is a model for researchers globally," Dr. Espinal said . "Finding a new TB vaccine is critical to ending the tuberculosis pandemic in South Africa and around the world."

SATVI press release
Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation