Global health experts are calling for a change of policy to revive the war on tuberculosis

Countries responsible for most tuberculosis infections are expected to undertake policy reforms in order to increase surveillance, diagnosis and treatment of the bacterial disease, experts said Monday.

Experts speaking during the virtual launch of the Step Up for TB 2020 report said that policy realignment combined with adequate investment in preventive and curative interventions is key to eradicating the highly contagious disorder.

“We need to have the right policies in place to ensure tuberculosis patients have access to the latest diagnostic and treatment options,” said Lucica Ditiu, executive director of Stop TB Partnership.

He said countries with a high TB ​​burden should abandon outdated policies, practices and treatment regimes that have slowed progress towards eliminating the disease in line with global goals.

The Stop TB Partnership in partnership with the international medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), compiled the report indicating that significant policy gaps and underfunding had derailed the war on the disease.

“National policy reforms are the first step towards achieving the goals of the United Nations High Level Meeting on Tuberculosis and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” the report said.

“With science offering hope in the form of new diagnoses and treatments for people with tuberculosis, these policies need to be updated rapidly and constantly to keep up,” he adds.

The report, which looked at the national policies of 37 countries and regions that account for 77% of the global TB burden, says that rapid implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines is key to revolutionizing screening, the treatment and management of the disease.

It says outages related to COVID-19 could trigger an additional 6.3 million TB cases and 1.4 million deaths from 2020 to 2025.

Tereza Kasaeva, director of WHO’s global tuberculosis program, said governments should update policy frameworks, invest in state-of-the-art diagnostics and simplify the supply of essential drugs to win the war against the disease.

He said multilateral institutions have supported research and data-based interventions to improve the quality of TB treatment and care among patients in low- and middle-income countries.

Mark Edington, head of grant management at the Global Fund, said a supportive political environment is key to increasing investment in TB prevention and high impact treatment interventions.