Each year, the 24th of March marks World Tuberculosis Day. TB continues to be a global health threat despite progress, and multiple challenges make it difficult to end TB by 2030.
TB is more than a health issue; it is a developmental issue, and children suffer the most in the face of TB. Finding undetected TB cases is key in the fight against TB; when people come together, they can prevent TB from spreading further within communities and reduce its global burden.
TB kills more people than HIV and AIDS, and malaria combined, yet the Global Fund allocates only 18% of its overall funding to TB, while 50% goes to HIV and AIDS and 32% to malaria. The world needs to prioritise investing in TB to enable raising awareness to change people’s attitudes towards TB, shortening TB treatment duration, improving community TB active case-finding approaches, increasing access to TB preventative treatment and developing new tools for effective diagnosis.
The emerging drug-resistant strains of TB, rising co-infection, climate change, malnutrition, stigma and discrimination threaten to reverse the gains made over the years. Ending TB requires an inclusive, sustainable and effective response by including TB-affected communities to be heard, supported, and participate towards achieving the Global End TB 2030 Strategy.
“For the first time in the history of tuberculosis, we have treatment regimens that are just 6 months long – for both so-called “regular” TB and drug-resistant TB. Just imagine – we can confirm a diagnosis of TB and drug resistance within hours and start treatment at once. A few years ago, we probably wouldn’t have thought this possible”, says- Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe.
Over the past 15 years, Humana People to People members have carried out TB projects impacting over 18.5 million people. We have built community-based networks of passionate local volunteers who are at the centre of bringing TB services to the people at the community level. We have given emotional and nutritional support to people taking daily TB medication and given them funds to meet transport costs related to accessing services. We have worked with health facilities and staff to provide health services. We are proud of our impact across diverse communities, countries and continents.
Development Aid from People to People in Zimbabwe (DAPP), one of the Humana People to People Movement members, prioritises sustainable community TB response through the Total Control of TB Makoni project. The project is aligned with Zimbabwe’s National TB Strategic Plan (2021-2025) to reduce TB incidence and attain the UNAIDS HIV 95-95-95 targets.
The project reduces the burden of HIV and, AIDS, and TB by addressing stigma and discrimination through raising awareness and improving diagnosis and treatment services in 59 health facilities. Communities, together with the project, take the lead in reducing new infections, increasing case finding and testing, and providing appropriate packages of treatment, care and support to HIV and TB-infected people in the community.
The project supports people affected by TB by forming TRIOs for treatment adherence. Each TRIO consists of a person suffering from TB and two supporters who provide daily encouragement and assistance, significantly improving the likelihood of treatment completion. The project prioritises nutrition by supporting TB-affected families in establishing nutrition gardens and training them on local climate adaptation strategies and savings clubs to strengthen their income.
The project provided a GeneXpert machine and X-ray cartridges to the Makoni district hospital to improve TB diagnosis. In the past seven years, the project has reached more than 100,000 people with HIV and TB messages, tested 10,240 presumptive cases, and diagnosed 412 people with TB.
We recognise the unified global efforts to end TB, and there is hope for a future where TB will no longer be a public health threat. It takes sustained political will to continue funding TB programmes, strengthening health systems and community engagement to work towards achieving the goal of ending TB and saving millions of lives by 2030.
Humana People to People, together with its members, is committed to ending TB by carrying out sustainable community TB programmes in TB-affected communities. At the centre of our TB programmes are our people to people approaches, which have proven that when people come together and take a stand to face challenges collectively, they can overcome and thrive, leaving no one behind.
