Since its inception in 1920, The Union has had a focus on tuberculosis (TB) and innovating TB care.
We have now set out our 2022-2027 vision, objectives and strategy for ending TB. This can only be achieved collectively, with our members, partners and TB community – everyone has a role to play.
Together, we can bring an end to TB.
Our work in TB
The Union works towards the global elimination of TB. We support high-quality, accessible prevention and care for people with and at risk of TB, to expand the evidence base for TB care and prevention and implement new knowledge into policy and practice.
Project Axshya
In collaboration with local partners and over 15,000 community volunteers, The Union provided innovative tuberculosis (TB) interventions designed to serve traditionally hard-to-reach and at-risk populations in India.
Specific TB priority areas
Read more about how The Union is working to fight key areas of TB:
Child & Adolescent Tuberculosis
The Union works to develop, test, implement and scale up routine screening of child contacts of people with TB. We run observational studies and advocate to ensure children and adolescents are included in clinical trials that target diagnostics, vaccines and treatment of TB disease and infection.
TB-HIV, TB-Diabetes and other co-morbidities
The Union develops, tests, implements and scales up models of care for co-morbid conditions that increase the risk of developing TB, that are prevalent in high TB burden settings, or that adversely affect TB treatment outcomes.
The Zoonotic TB Sub-section was instrumental in the creation of the first-ever Roadmap for Zoonotic TB, a policy document that addressed the major health and economic impacts of the disease, created in collaboration with the World Health Organization.
Members work together to influence global policy and practice, ensuring their work has a greater global impact.
Understand the issues with our factsheets
Tuberculosis Union news
Impact of COVID-19 on TB detection in the private sector in Nepal
In this Correspondence accepted article for IJTLD, the authors found a 67.4% decrease in testing, a 66.9% decrease in bacteriologically confirmed (bac+) diagnosis and a 58.9% decrease in diagnosis of all forms TB. The preprint is free to read.
Diagnosis patterns for rifampicin-resistant TB after onset of COVID-19
In this recently accepted article for IJTLD, the authors found that RR-TB diagnosis decreased by 21–38% following the start of the pandemic. The results are disturbing and suggest that COVID-19 has had a sustained impact at a time when household transmission of TB/RR-TB might have increased due to ‘shelter at home’. The preprint is free to read.
Impact of COVID-19 on TB case detection and treatment outcomes
The Centre for Operational Research at The Union, working in close collaboration with the National TB Programme and National AIDS…
Ground-breaking Tuberculosis Psychosocial Support Guide from The Union, TB Alert and global partners
The Union in partnership with TB Alert, WHO Regional Office for Europe and the Stop TB partnership today released a new guide “…
TB Publications
Until recently, the focus has been on finding and treating people with TB. But now bold targets for TB prevention have been outlined in the recent UN High-Level Meeting on TB. The Union develops, tests, implements and scales up models of care to increase the uptake and completion of TB preventive treatments in key high risk groups including children under 5 and people living with HIV.
'Prevent Tuberculosis: Management of TB Infection' is a free course which improves knowledge of all aspects of the management of TB infection including the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis with the specific aim of increasing country-level implementation of TB prevention among i) household contact of people affected by TB, especially those under five years of age, ii) persons with risk factors to develop TB, and iii) people living with HIV in care.