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From the Stop TB Partnership Annual Report 2004Moving towards our common goal
I am pleased to present the 2004 Report of the Stop TB Partnership. This Report highlights key achievements in core areas of work including governance, advocacy and communication, partnership building, access to lifesaving tuberculosis (TB) drug treatments and resource mobilization.The pinnacle of 2004 was the second Partners' Forum in New Delhi, which was hosted and opened by the Prime Minister of India, His Excellency Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and attended by the Director-General of the World Health Organization, along with more than 300 partners from around the world. The Partners' Forum became the event of the year with the adoption of the landmark declaration "Keeping the Pledge" when Partners recommitted themselves to achieving the 2005 global TB targets by accelerating DOTS expansion, reaching out to new constituencies and mobilizing the resources needed to reach the 2005 targets as well as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015. The historic interventions at the Forum calling for increased commitment against TB by world leaders like Kofi Annan, Bill Clinton, Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu and Mikhail Gorbachev, and months later by Nelson Mandela at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, were a welcome response to our joint advocacy, communication and social mobilization efforts with Stop TB partners. Together we are firmly placing the fight against TB as a top priority in the global agenda of world leaders. I cannot fail to mention the excellent performance of the Global Drug Facility (GDF) and the Green Light Committee (GLC) in 2004. Both projects successfully continued their critical mission of saving lives by providing low-cost, high-quality TB drug treatments. By the end of 2004, over four million people in 58 countries had been supplied with first-line drugs by the GDF. Likewise, the GLC passed the milestone of 10 000 patients approved for treatment of multidrug-resistant TB with second-line drugs in 23 countries. Such achievements reflect the remarkable stamina of the Stop TB Partnership. Expanding access to life-saving treatment in this way for TB patients in the poorest countries of the world is something we can all be proud of. The work of the Partnership's working groups deserves recognition: by the end of 2004, more than 182 countries were implementing DOTS; 23 countries were implementing DOTS-Plus and TB/HIV collaborative activities and a body of policy documents had been generated; promising pipeline of new diagnostic tests, drug compounds and vaccines were developed. Let me conclude by taking a brief look into the future. In the next 10 years, achieving the MDGs will be the critical test for the Partnership. I am confident that the second Global Plan to Stop TB for 2006-2015, to be launched in January 2006, will prove to be a clear beacon for our efforts to meet the MDGs and a major milestone in our ultimate mission to achieve a world free of TB. International development agendas and global initiatives are evolving, with increasing calls for greater accountability and service to countries in need. We commit ourselves to keeping the Stop TB Partnership results-oriented, innovative, transparent and responsible to our partners, countries and above all to people who are directly affected by TB, an ancient scourge that still takes nearly two million lives every year. The Secretariat will uphold these principles and continue to provide timely high-quality support to all our partners to maximize their impact and engagement. Working together, we can confidently envision a better future for people affected by TB. Dr Marcos Espinal Executive Secretary Stop TB Partnership Secretariat Click here to read the full report (2M PDF) |
