Newswise — “The American Thoracic Society welcomes the news from the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2012 that progress is being made towards halting the global tuberculosis (TB) pandemic and that implementation of a new rapid diagnostic test, Xpert MTB/RIF, which was developed with U.S. government support through the National Institutes of Health, is accelerating these efforts.
“At the same time, we note that the WHO’s report articulates the challenges that remain in eliminating this disease. Although the incidence of TB is slowly falling, the number of deaths from the disease remained the same between 2010 and 2011. TB remains the second-leading infectious killer of people around the globe. The continued spread of multi-drug resistant TB and the funding gap for adequately addressing it are key challenges.
“The ATS reiterates its call to the international community to fully fund the WHO’s STOP TB Strategy which, if implemented, will halt the global TB pandemic. Here, in the United States, the ATS is concerned that proposed funding cuts to global health programs, including those proposed under budget sequestration, threaten our progress against TB. We urge Congress and the President to maintain U.S. leadership on global and domestic TB control through appropriate funding for TB programs at the CDC, USAID and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
“The ATS, originally founded as the American Sanitorium Association in 1905, and its more than 15,000 worldwide members pledge to continue our work to eliminate TB. In collaboration with the WHO and other partners, we have produced international standards of care and are providing technical assistance in implementing those standards and other TB control, treatment and prevention strategies in over 30 countries. We know how to eliminate TB, so let’s commit to doing it.”
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