PHA-Exchange> WHO LAUNCHES NEW 'STOP TB' STRATEGY TO TREAT 50 MILLION PEOPLE

[Claudio]

From: "Vern Weitzel" <vern.weitzel at undp.org>
From: UNNews at un.org

WHO LAUNCHES NEW ‘STOP TB’ STRATEGY TO TREAT 50 MILLION PEOPLE
New York, Mar 17 2006  2:00PM
In an effort to reduce the 1.7 million deaths caused by tuberculosis (TB)
every year, a new strategy
to fight the disease in its varied incarnations was launched today by the
World Health Organization
(<"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr12/en/index.html">WHO
).

The Geneva-based agency said the new initiative underpins the Global Plan to
Stop TB 2006–2015, an
ambitious $ 56 billion action plan launched in January, which will treat 50
million people for TB,
halve the disease’s prevalence and death rates and save 14 million lives if
carried out fully.

In that way, and by creating new partnerships and helping to strengthen
health systems, the new
strategy is structured to help meet health-related Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) – a the set
of targets for reducing poverty and other global ills by 2015 – according to
Mario Raviglione,
Director of WHO’s Stop TB Department.

“The Stop TB Strategy aims to ensure access to care for all TB patients, to
reach the 2015
Millennium Development Goal for TB and to reduce the burden of TB
 worldwide,” Dr. Raviglione affirmed.

The strategy, he said, builds on the TB-control approach known as DOTS,
promoted by WHO to treat
over 22 million patients since 1995, while also targeting the combined
TB/HIV and drug-resistant
MDR-TB strains of the disease.

“DOTS remains central to TB control,” he said. “But with DOTS programmes now
established in 183
countries, the new Stop TB Strategy injects new energies to make efforts
more comprehensive and
effective.”

The Stop TB Strategy, detailed in the 17 March issue of the Lancet medical
journal ahead of World TB
Day on 24 March, was developed during a consultation process involving
international health partners
over a two-year period.