Geneva – As the United Nations General Assembly convenes world leaders at the High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis (TB) this week, discussions will focus on the urgent need for access and innovation to put an end to a disease that we have known how to cure for decades. Despite this, TB continues to kill more people each year than any other infectious disease.
Advocates and global health leaders have called out the persistent crisis of drug-resistant and multidrug-resistant TB, which continues to claim the lives of 2 in every 5 people affected. The challenge of treating drug-resistant TB is also a major driver of antimicrobial resistance and poses a serious threat to supplies of antibiotics critical to treating a range of infections.
But advances in drug-resistant TB treatment regimens bring hope. Dramatic improvements have cut treatment time in half and promise to radically alter outcomes for millions of people. However, new medicines and other tools are often slow to arrive in the countries that need them most, and even when they do, most people with drug-resistant TB never get diagnosed because access to testing that can accurately identify resistance is limited.
Unitaid’s latest call for proposals is aimed at driving demand for new medicines and accelerating the introduction of improved drug-resistant treatment regimens alongside complementary interventions such as improved diagnostics and adherence support. This package of care is intended to ensure people living with TB can get the medicines they need as quickly as possible while safeguarding against further resistance.
Civil society and community-based leadership will be critical to understanding the needs of affected communities as well as the barriers they face in accessing treatment. These advocates will play a key role in reaching policymakers and at-risk populations alike, raising awareness and understanding of drug-resistant TB treatment, driving demand for new regimens and diagnostics, and strengthening links between health services to reduce the gaps in the TB response.
These efforts should underpin targeted strategies to accelerate implementation, expand access to new regimens and improve case finding and resistance monitoring while protecting the long-term efficacy of key medicines for future generations.
Find out more about this latest funding opportunity here.
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