It is about writing the “last chapter” of a story that has lasted since “millennials”. Friday, September 22 in New York, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, tried to show the light at the end of the tunnel to representatives gathered at the summit against tuberculosis, as part of the United Nations General Assembly which opened on Tuesday. The WHO and all the experts insist that this pulmonary infection can be prevented and treated; However, it still killed 1.6 million people in 2021, mainly in low- and middle-income countries.
Member countries approved a political declaration setting several objectives, including the provision of preventive and curative treatments for at least 90% of patients and support for research to have a new vaccine. They want to revitalize a major fight for global health, which Covid-19 has pushed to the background by moving away from the objectives adopted at the previous summit, in 2018.
According to a WHO report published in October 2022, Covid-19 has erased four years of progress. By monopolizing resources, the pandemic caused an 18% drop in cases tuberculosis detected, going from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020. The WHO mentions a “partial catch-up” in 2021, to 6.4 million, the level recorded in 2017. It is estimated that 40% of tuberculosis cases, out of 10.6 million in 2021, are not diagnosed or not notified to the authorities. Mortality increased between 2019 (1.4 million deaths) and 2021, marking a return, again, to the 2017 level.
Lack of treatments
Most of the treatment objectives set in 2018 have not been achieved, neither for “drug-sensitive” tuberculosis – which can be treated with first-line treatments – nor for “drug-resistant” tuberculosis, which requires more extensive care. . In 2022, all types of tuberculosis and all ages combined, 6 million treatments will have been missed for a target set at 40 million. Concerning drug-resistant tuberculosis, 675,000 treatments for adults will have been missed out of the target set at 1.5 million. The Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, on the other hand, speaks for 2022 of a “clear recovery” in the 110 countries where it operates, with 6.7 million patients under treatment, compared to 5.8 million in 2019.
The financial objective is not being met any better: planned at 13 billion dollars (12.2 billion euros) per year, funding for operational control has capped at 5.8 billion dollars in 2022, according to the WHO. Research funding only reached $1 billion last year, compared to an expected $2 billion.
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