The Union submitted an intervention at the Executive Board of the World Health Organization.
The Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) meet this week for the first of their bi-annual meetings, where the members agree upon the agenda and the resolutions to be considered at the World Health Assembly. The Union successfully submitted the following intervention calling for increased funding into research and development for tuberculosis.
Intervention on Addressing the global shortage of, and access to, medicines and vaccines
144th Session of the WHO Executive Board
Agenda item: 5.7
The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung disease (The Union) is a global scientific organisation founded to advance solutions to the most pressing public health challenges affecting people living in poverty, including tuberculosis.
The TB epidemic will persist, and TB drug-resistance will worsen, without new tools to treat, diagnose, and prevent TB. Adequate financing for TB R&D is essential to ensuring the rights to health and the benefits of scientific progress, achieving Universal Health Coverage, and ending the emergency of TB drug resistance that is central to the broader AMR crisis.
Member states committed to closing the annual $1.2billion gap in TB R&D funding at the 2018 High Level Meeting on TB. The need for this gap to be filled has never been greater with successful results from recent vaccine and TB treatment trials that will require significant new investment to ensure that they are developed within the timeline to enable the WHO END TB goals to be met. It is vital that this new funding committed by member states maintains and reinforces the ideals outlined in the CEWG process. The Union supports the WHO developing a Global Strategy for TB Research and Innovation 2020-2030 to build on and reinforce the work outlined in the road map for Access to Medicines, Vaccines and other health products and ensure the affordable and equitable access to any new tools developed for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of TB.