WHO Launches New Stop Tb Strategy to Treat 50 Million People
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New York, Mar 17 2006 2:00PM
In an effort to reduce the 1.7 million deaths caused by tubercu-
losis (TB) every year, a new strategy to fight the disease in
its varied incarnations was launched today by the World Health
Organization (WHO).
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr12/en/index.html
The Geneva-based agency said the new initiative underpins the
Global Plan to Stop TB 20062015, an ambitious $ 56 billion ac-
tion plan launched in January, which will treat 50 million peo-
ple for TB, halve the diseases prevalence and death rates and
save 14 million lives if carried out fully.
In that way, and by creating new partnerships and helping to
strengthen health systems, the new strategy is structured to
help meet health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) a
the set of targets for reducing poverty and other global ills by
2015 according to Mario Raviglione, Director of WHOs Stop TB
Department.
The Stop TB Strategy aims to ensure access to care for all TB
patients, to reach the 2015 Millennium Development Goal for TB
and to reduce the burden of TB worldwide, Dr. Raviglione af-
firmed.
The strategy, he said, builds on the TB-control approach known
as DOTS, promoted by WHO to treat over 22 million patients since
1995, while also targeting the combined TB/HIV and drug-
resistant MDR-TB strains of the disease.
DOTS remains central to TB control, he said. But with DOTS
programmes now established in 183 countries, the new Stop TB
Strategy injects new energies to make efforts more comprehensive
and effective.
The Stop TB Strategy, detailed in the 17 March issue of the Lan-
cet medical journal ahead of World TB Day on 24 March, was de-
veloped during a consultation process involving international
health partners over a two-year period.