Tens of Millions of TB Patients Cured

The World Health Organization reports that over the past 15 years, the Stop TB Strategy has resulted in 36 million people being cured of tuberculosis and eight million lives saved.  Reductions in disease burden achieved to date follow fourteen years of intensive efforts at global, regional and country levels to implement the Stop TB Strategy (2006–) and it’s predecessor, the DOTS strategy (1995–2005).

The Stop TB priorities are to expand, adapt, and improve strategies to control and eliminate TB in support of the World Health Assembly Targets set by 2005 (70% case-detection and 85% cure-rates) and the Millennium Development Goals.

The Stop TB Partnership aims to provide global leadership, strategy, and coordinating mechanisms.  The partnership develops advocacy and resource mobilization strategies in support of these priorities, and coordinates and ‘brokers’ resource flows. Other partners in this WHO program include Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, as well as Médecins sans Frontières and the IFPMA.

Other initiatives and partnerships working to reduce the disease burden of tuberculosis and improve public health in developing countries include:

• Training programs for health workers
• Research centers focused on neglected tropical diseases and optimizing treatments for developing countries (such as the Infectious Disease Research Institute)
• Drug donation programs

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