Princess-Ekwi Ajide, Abuja
World Health Organisation, WHO, says even though world leaders had agreed to mobilize US$13 billion per year to finance TB prevention and treatment by 2022 and promised another US$2 billion per year for TB research in the face of growing concerns around drug-resistant TB, funding for TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment services continues to fall far short of estimated global needs, and the United Nations global target.
WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti expressed this concern on
World TB Day which is observed on 24th March each year to raise public awareness and understanding about one of the globe’s deadliest infectious diseases, as well as its devastating health, social and economic impacts.
“Invest to end TB. Save lives” is this year’s theme and emphasizes the urgent need to invest the resources necessary to ramp up the fight against TB, and realize the commitments made by global leaders to end TB.
She said that while national strategic plans and accompanying budgets for tuberculosis have grown in ambition, mobilization of funding has not kept pace as in 2020, global spending on TB services fell to US$5.3 billion, and funding for research was US$901 million.
The WHO Regional Director, lamented that African governments contribute only 22% of the resources required to deliver adequate TB services, with 44% going unfunded, which is seriously impeding efforts to reduce the TB burden.
Dr. Moeti counted South Africa and Zambia as the best examples of high TB burden countries that have steadily increased domestic funding specifically allocated for TB.
According to her, in 2020, South Africa provided 81% of domestic funding to support TB activities and Zambia has increased its domestic funding seven-fold since 2015.
She said increased funding from domestic sources and international donors is urgently needed if the region is to counteract a reversal of the significant gains made against TB in the past decades saying that at the current rate of progress, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target of ending the TB epidemic by 2030 will not be achievable.
Dr. Moeti, stressed that to reach the target, TB incidence would have had to record an annual decline of 4% to 5% in 2020, increasing to 10% per year by 2025, and then to an average 17% annually in the following decade.
She decried the fact, that the world saw an increase in the number of global TB deaths for the first time in over a decade in 2021 counting the contributory factors to include reduced access to TB diagnosis and treatment, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic .
The WHO Regional Director noted that 36% of all TB deaths occurred in Africa, and failure to invest in the TB response will take further toll on African countries but increased investment can be a game-changer, as it can alleviate the preventable suffering and death of millions of our people.
She called on governments to mobilize additional domestic financial support for TB control, including contributions to the Global Fund, which last month launched its US$18-billion Seventh Replenishment campaign so as to counter the catastrophic impact of COVID-19 on the fight against TB and urged all stakeholders to advocate for increased investment, to ensure that TB services are integrated into the primary health care response.
Dr. Moeti harped the for a collaborative work with communities, leveraging their expert local knowledge to tailor response efforts for maximum impact just as he appealed to donors, the private sector, civil society and academia to pay increased attention to urgently boosting investment in the fight against TB and in TB research, in order to accelerate technological breakthroughs and uptake of innovations towards ending TB by 2030.
