Health and Business Heads Talk in NY to End TB

By Chhay Sophal
Cambodia News

Phnom Penh (25 September 2018): Considering Tuberculosis (TB) as the global deadliest infectious disease, killing more people than HIV and malaria combined, the world’s health and business leaders on Tuesday convened at the TB Innovation Summit in New York city and pledged major commitments to end it.

According to a report released at the Summit co-hosted by the Stop TB Partnership, Johnson & Johnson, World Economic Forum, UN Foundation, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, 10 million people develop active TB every year while 1.6 million people lose their lives – 3 every minute; and over 4 million cases of TB go undetected.
TB and Malaria, served to disrupt business as usual, and catalyse a new journey around the shared goal of driving innovation – both in the lab and at the country level – to create a brighter, hopeful future for the people affected by TB around the world, the report said.
Speaking in his opening statement, World Health Organisation Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “To end TB, business as usual will not work. If we keep doing what we have done, we will get the same result. That is the definition of insanity.”

Echoing Dr Tedros, Stop TB Partnership Executive Director Lucica Ditiu said “With the current political support, innovations and financing available for combatting TB, we will not meet the SDG of ending TB by 2030. The Summit has sparked conversations we absolutely need across all s

ectors to encourage innovation and collaboration to help bridge this gap. Now is the time to prioritize the promise of life over unnecessary death for people affected by TB. Together, we can change the future for millions of people around the world.”

The United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB, taken place on 26 September in New York City, will serve as an opportunity for Heads of State, government and all TB stakeholders to commit much-needed attention, resources and accountability to end TB.

“We must commit to making the investments necessary to end TB, recognizing that the right thing to do also makes financial sense. Governments and businesses need to develop long-term strategies that take the goal of ending TB by 2030 seriously. We urgently need more partnerships between governments, businesses (particularly drug makers), and civil-society organizations and today was a great first step towards furthering those partnerships,” said Vanessa Candeias, Head of Global Health and Healthcare System Initiative, World Economic Forum.