Stop TB Partnership

The web site of the STOP TB Initiative - a global partnership for global action to stop TB. Extensive set of information on programmes, news, latest updates, events, activities, liniks, facts, treatment, impact.

People in low-resource countries who are ill with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) will get a faster diagnosis in two days, not the standard two to three months and appropriate treatment thanks to two new initiatives unveiled today by WHO, the Stop TB Partnership, UNITAID and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND).

CAPE TOWN World leaders and US software giant Bill Gates lent their voices to the global campaign against tuberculosis (TB) on Friday, unveiling at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a 56bn plan to fight the disease. The plan aims to treat 50-million patients and prevent 14-million deaths by 2015, and will be the work of the Stop Tuberculosis Partnership, an association of governments, health organisations, donors and grassroots bodies.

This review of the Stop TB Partnership in South Africa is part of a multi-country study funded by WEMOS. The review seeks to augment the existing body of knowledge on Global Public Private Initiatives (GPPIs) in health with the aim of generating a set of country-based evidence relating to the effect of GPPIs on health policies and health systems.

An overwhelming number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in Africa unleashed by HIV are frustrating efforts to reverse the global TB epidemic, according to an independent report issued today by the Massive Effort Campaign and RESULTS International, based on new data published by the World Health Organization.

Rising rates contrast sharply with accelerated progress in other regions

During the course of World TB Day, more than 5,000 human beings will die from tuberculosis.

FIND (Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics) and BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) announced an international collaboration aimed at improving diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in HIV-infected patients in developing countries.

Scientists have sounded the alarm over Tuberculosis superbugs stalking communities across the Western Cape that could wreak health havoc throughout South Africa. One variant, called DRF150, is resistant to almost all the front-line antibiotics used to treat drug-resistant TB, which means hundreds of thousands of rands may be needed to bring the mini-epidemic under control. The new strain has its epicentre in George, where 60 patients are affected, but another 20 cases or so have also been found in Worcester, Villiersdorp and the northern areas of Cape Town. A few cases have been isolated in Mpumalanga and in Nairobi, Kenya. It poses a serious threat for both local and national health authorities, according to Professor Tommie Victor, the specialist who identified it. The Victor team's findings have been published in the European International Journal of Tubercle and Lung Disease, and have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in the United States. According to the study findings, which analysed data from 72 clinics in the Boland, Overberg and Karoo regions, more than 60 percent of drug-resistant TB is being transmitted from person to person. Until now, usually drug-resistant TB occurred in people who did not take their TB medication regularly. Pointing to the astronomical expense of treating drug-resistant TB, Victor said treating ordinary TB cost about R200 per patient for a six-month course. In the case of drug-resistant TB, that spiralled to between R25 000 and R30 000, and the treatment period required was tripled to 18 months. The Stellenbosch group has come up with a new method of identifying drug-resistant TB in 12 days, much shorter than the usual two months of testing required - a delay which Victor said could be partly to blame for its spread.(Source: Di Caelers, Cape Argus, November 12 2003) Links\//\ 'Super' tuberculosis strain discovered in SA http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23661 Global Plan to Stop TB http://www.stoptb.org/GPSTB/default.asp This document describes the action and resources needed over the next five years to expand, adapt, and improve DOTS - meeting the 2005 global targets and setting the world on the road to the elimination of TB. Prepared over the last two years by a team from Partners in Health and the Stop TB Partnership secretariat, with funding from the Open Society Institute, the Global Plan incorporates contributions from over 150 experts in TB control, public health and development around the world, and has the backing of WHO, the World Bank and many other agencies involved in the Global Partnership to Stop TB.

t may be curable, but tuberculosis kills 5 000 people and more than 20 000 others are infecte dworldwide every day. It is with this in mind that the World Health Organisation (WHO), the South African Department of Health and International Cricket Council (ICC) have joined forces to launch Hit TB for a 6. The programme forms part of the Stop TB Partnership, a global coalition of 250-member organisations, and is aimed at creating awareness that TB can be cured. According to WHO statistics, SA has the seventh-highest rate of TB infections in the world, with estimated 243 306 in 2001. India is at the top of the list at 2-million infections a year, with China a close second at 1 447 947. Of the 22 high-burden countries which account for 80% of global TB cases, Mozambique has the lowest with 49 342 in 2001. Many of the countries are hard hit by poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation and overcrowding - all contributing to the spread of TB, which is caused by the bacillus Myobacterium tuberculosis. Untreated, one person with active TB will infect between 10 and 15 people annually. While the disease has been curable for 50 years, a third of the world's population is infected. At last week's launch of the programme, executive director of the ICC Cricket World Cup Dr Ali Bacher said, Cricket could raise awareness about TB and the key barriers for control measures discrimination and fear. This year, SA marks World TB Day on March 24 with high-profile visits to tuberculosis clinics, and a national event in Port Elizabeth.( Source: The Star, 11 March 2003).