Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) is a curable and treatable disease – yet it is the leading infectious disease killer worldwide, accounting for 1.2 million deaths among HIV-negative people in 2018 alone, and an additional 251 000 deaths among HIV-positive people.

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Tuberculosis

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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

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Between January 2018 and March 2020, The Union’s Project Axshya has facilitated the identification and testing of 730,000 people with presumptive TB, and the project provided sputum collection and transportation services to 320,000 people, resulting in 20,000 patients being diagnosed with TB.

TREAT TB

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Read more about TREAT TB (Technology, Research, Education and Technical Assistance for Tuberculosis), an ambitious initiative that was launched by The Union, seeking to contribute new knowledge regarding shorter, more tolerable treatment regimens for MDR-TB.

Specific TB priority areas

Read more about how The Union is working to fight key areas of TB:

Child & Adolescent Tuberculosis

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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.

MEMBERS IN ACTION

A leading role in the prevention and control of zoonotic TB

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. 

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Understand the issues with our factsheets

Tuberculosis Union news

TB Publications

TB Prevention

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.

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