Public Health Action PHA 2017; 7(2): 110–115
4th edition.
This report – now in its fourth edition – analyses the barriers and factors affecting access to treatment regimens for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), including new and repurposed drugs. We provide detailed pricing profiles of key DR-TB drugs, using manufacturer responses to s...tandardised questionnaires and the Global TB Drug Facility website.
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This report reviews the latest evidence on what works to reduce HIV-related stigma and discrimination through key programmes to reduce stigma and discrimination and increase access to justice in the six settings of focus for the Global Partnership. It includes guidance for national governments and k...ey stakeholders on how stigma and discrimination harm; how the stigmatization process operates and how we can stop it; key principles of stigma- and discrimination-reduction efforts; an overview of common intervention approaches; recommendations based on the latest evidence for reducing HIV-related stigma and discrimination in the six settings; and an overview of considerations for monitoring the success of the programmatic interventions recommended for each setting.
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Validation of elimination of mother-to-child transmission, or vertical transmission, of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B virus (HBV), is an attestation that a country has successfully met standard criteria for elimination, or for being at 1 of the 3 levels of achievement on the ‘Path to Elimination... while delivering quality services for women, girls and their children, through the life-course, respecting human rights and ensuring gender equality and community engagement.
This document, the third version, adds on EMTCT of hepatitis B virus (HBV), bringing together a package of interventions and metrics to support integrated management and monitoring of vertical transmission across a wide range of epidemiological and programmatic contexts.
This document, the third version, adds on EMTCT of hepatitis B virus (HBV), bringing together a package of interventions and metrics to support integrated management and monitoring of vertical transmission across a wide range of epidemiological and programmatic contexts.
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The WHO End TB Strategy aims to end the global TB epidemic by 2030, in alignment with Goal 3 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN committed to ending the TB epidemic through adoption of WHO’s End TB Strateg...y and the UN SDGs in 2014 and 2015, respectivel
Almost half of the deaths worldwide caused by TB in 2019 occurred in the WHO South-East Asia Region, home to around a quarter of the global population. Maintaining robust progress in this Region is therefore essential if the global goal of ending the TB epidemic is to be realized. Despite substantial gains made in the Region, the threat to
health worldwide posed by the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to reverse these gains and eclipse the focus on the global TB emergency.
While continuing to tackle COVID-19-related challenges, countries will need to rapidly and urgently deploy supplementary measures to address the large numbers of missed cases, poor treatment outcomes and, potentially, a higher TB burden.
The Regional Strategic Plan towards Ending TB in the Region 2021–2025 clearly articulates priority interventions, analyses the challenges, bottlenecks and opportunities, and focuses on implementation considerations in the Region.
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Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) has been an alarming global public health issue. The disease affects mainly poor and marginalized people in low-resource settings and is caused by two subspecies of haemoflagellate parasite, Trypanosoma brucei and transmitted by tsetse flies. Progress made in HAT ...control during the past decade has prompted increasing global dialogue on its elimination and eradication. The disease is targeted by the World Health Organization (WHO) for elimination as a public health problem by 2020 and to terminate its transmission globally by 2030, along-side other Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD). Several methods have been used to control tsetse flies and the disease transmitted by them. Old and new tools to control the disease are available with constraints.
Currently, there are no vaccines available. Efforts towards intervention to control the disease over the past decade have seen considerable progress and remarkable success with incidence dropping progressively, reversing the upward trend of reported cases. This gives credence in a real progress in its elimination. This study reviews various control measures, progress and a highlight of control issues, vector and parasite barriers that may have been hindering progress towards its elimination.
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Gambiense human African trypanosomiasis is a deadly infectious disease affecting West and Central Africa, South Sudan and Uganda, and transmitted between humans by tsetse flies. The disease has caused several major epidemics, the latest one in the 1990s. Thanks to recent innovations such as rapid di...agnostic tests for population screening, a single-dose oral treatment and a highly efficient vector control strategy, interruption of transmission of the causative parasite is now within reach. If indeed gHAT has an exclusively human reservoir, this could even result in eradication of the disease. Even if there were an animal reservoir, on the basis of epidemiological data, it plays a limited role. Maintaining adequate postelimination surveillance in known historic foci, using the newly developed tools, should be sufficient to prevent any future resurgence.
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In response to the recent publication “Is onchocerciasis elimination in Africa feasible by 2025: a perspective based on lessons learnt from the African control programmes” by Dadzie et al., it is important to clarify and highlight the positive and unequivocal research and operational contributio...ns from the American experience towards the worldwide elimination of human onchocerciasis (river blindness).
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Cervical cancer continues to be a significant public health problem and a major cause of premature mortality among women, disproportionately affecting the socioeconomically disadvantaged population in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In the absence of implementing the known evidence-based, ...cost-effective interventions, the number of deaths per year is projected to reach approximately 416 000 globally in 2035. It was estimated in 2020 that 32% of incident cervical cancer cases and 34% of cervical cancer deaths in the world occurred in the 11 Member States of the WHO South-East Asia (SEA) Region. In 2020, 190 874 new cases and 116 015 deaths were estimated due to cervical cancer, which is the third commonest cancer in the Region
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This document provides technical guidance on concepts, definitions, indicators, criteria, milestones and tools to assist leprosy programmes in their journey towards the goals of interruption of transmission and elimination of leprosy disease and through the post-elimination period. Importantly, it p...rovides criteria with benchmarks, where possible, for all key aspects of leprosy programmes and services. Not only those related to elimination efforts, but also those related to diagnosis and management of leprosy, leprosy-related disabilities, mental wellbeing, stigma and discrimination and inclusion and participation of persons affected by leprosy. The document emphasises that the elimination of leprosy is a long-term, continuous journey on the one hand, while, on the other, clear milestones can be recognised on the way and programme implementation can be assessed against benchmarks, guiding appropriate action to keep the programme on track.
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The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste has the highest TB incidence rate in the South East Asian Region - 498 per 100,000, which is the seventh highest in the world. In Timor-Leste TB is the eighth most common cause of death.
The salient observations are as follows:
In 2018, 487 (12.5%) of the... 3906 notified TB patients were tested for RR-TB and only 12 lab confirmed RR-TB patients were initiated on standard MDR-TB treatment of 20-months duration, (a 3-fold increase in RR-TB detection compared with 2017). This amounts to treatment coverage of only 17% of 72 estimated MDR/RR-TB among notified TB patients (3906) and 5% of 240 estimated incident MDR-TB patients as compared to 62% treatment coverage of 6300 incident drug sensitive TB patients estimated in TLS. The treatment success in the 2016 annual cohort of 6 MDR-TB patients has been reported at 83%. 80% of TB patients know their HIV Status with around 1% TB-HIV co-infection, 37/ 77 (48%) TB-HIV Co-infection Detected. Of the 387 PLHIV currently alive on ART, exact status on TB screening and testing is unknown. % of PLHIV newly enrolled in HIV care who received IPT is not known.
In 2018, the mortality rate for TB was 94 deaths per 100,000 people (1200 per annum) in TL with an increasing mortality trend (Figure 1), despite TB services being available for nearly two decades.
A survey of catastrophic costs due to TB (2016) highlights that 83% of TB patients are reported to be facing catastrophic costs due to the disease. This is the highest rate in the world.
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