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Nobel Peace Laureates and Representatives of 20 million Health Care Providers Call on Governments to Fund the Scale Up of Human Resources Needed to Fight TB
Initiatives launched to address training and education needs in TB burdened countries

21 March 2006 - Geneva, Switzerland

Nobel Peace Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Betty Williams are joining forces with global health care organizations representing more than 20 million health care providers in highlighting the need to provide the necessary human resources to fight the growing TB threat in high burden countries*. They are calling on governments to immediately commit to fund, train and scale-up the health care workforce to combat TB and help prevent 5,000 daily deaths from this curable disease. At this special event, Eli Lilly & Company and six leading global health and relief organizations are launching a number of initiatives to tackle the human resources crisis in TB treatment.

Though 90% of the world’s population live in countries that have adopted the internationally recommended strategy for controlling TB, an adequately trained health care workforce is required to fully implement control programmes and save an additional 14 million lives over the next 10 years. According to the Stop TB Partnership, it is estimated that US$ 250 million is needed every year to provide technical assistance to countries to provide the training and strengthening of TB control services to millions of care providers.

To address this, the International Council of Nurses (ICN), the International Hospital Federation (IHF), and the World Medical Association (WMA) will be presenting their new on-site and distance learning TB training programmes for nurses, hospital managers, doctors and laboratory technicians, which are being rolled-out in the high-burden countries. The World Economic Forum and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies will outline their new programmes to introduce TB prevention and treatment into the workplace and communities, so that workers and families can be diagnosed correctly and the social stigma of the disease reduced.

This event follows the announcement of the Global Plan to Stop TB 2006-2015 at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and aims to raise awareness of the urgent need to expand and strengthen human resources to deliver the Global Plan. Tuberculosis is re-emerging as a serious global health threat that causes 9 million new cases and 2 million deaths every year. Of these new cases, 400 000 are of increasingly virulent drug resistant strains (MDR-TB), which are often spawned by improper or incomplete treatment of normal TB. In several countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, MDR-TB has increased to 15 % of new cases, while in several African countries with high HIV prevalence, rates of TB have tripled. According to the WHO, fewer than 1 in 50 people who develop MDR-TB currently have access to effective treatment and the vast majority die.

Archbishop Tutu, speaking from his personal experience with TB, said ”I urge the G-8, governments of TB burdened countries, and international donors to address this gap in funding for human resources urgently.” The Archbishop, who contracted the disease as a child in South Africa, continued “Without well-trained health care providers in the field we cannot possibly combat this curable disease which kills so many so needlessly, and the Global Plan will fail. Fourteen million lives can be saved and 50 million people treated in the next 10 years if we address this crisis now and ramp-up training and education in high burden countries.”

Eli Lilly and Company has committed US$ 70 million to a ground breaking global partnership to fight multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (Lilly MDR-TB Partnership**). Rich Pilnik, Lilly President of Europe, Africa, Middle East and CIS, comments: “The successful treatment and prevention of this silent killer is above all dependent on sufficient well trained, mobilized and motivated health providers, particularly for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. As some of the programmes launched today show, we are beginning to build the defences, but now we need to fight this war with well trained professionals.”

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* High burden countries (the top 22 ranked by number of new TB cases) include: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, China, DR Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe.
** The Lilly MDR-TB Partnership is a public-private initiative led by Eli Lilly & Company to address the expanding crisis of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) together with global health and relief organizations, academic institutions and private companies. Lilly has launched a multifaceted philanthropic programme to address MDR-TB. The partnership is pursuing a comprehensive strategy to fight MDR-TB through increasing drug supply and discounting prices, providing training in prevention, treatment, and surveillance, and sharing drug manufacturing technology with nations most at risk. For further information on the Lilly MDR-TB Partnership, please go to www.lillymdr-tb.com and note partners participating in this event listed below.

Editor’s Notes:

The World Medical Association (WMA) is a global federation of national medical associations, representing the millions of physicians worldwide. Acting on behalf of physicians and patients, the WMA endeavours to achieve the highest possible standards of medical science, education, ethics and health care for all people. For more information please visit www.wma.net or contact:
Nigel Duncan +44 (0) 208 997 3653, e-mail: nduncan@ndcommunications.co.uk

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The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

Incorporated as a foundation in 1971, and based in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum is impartial and not-for-profit; it is tied to no political, partisan or national interests. (www.weforum.org)




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Tel.: +41 (0) 22 869 1212
Fax: +41 (0) 22 869 1394
E-mail: public.affairs@weforum.org

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