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STORY: GENEVA / TUBERCULOSIS
TRT: 2.14
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 20 MARCH 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
20 MARCH 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, press room
2. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the TB department, WHO:
“WHO estimates that every year 3 million people that we estimate exist are missed by the health systems. They are not there. Some are never diagnosed; some are perhaps diagnosed and treated but never reported, perhaps in the private sector. We must therefore improve access to rapid and quality diagnostic services that we can serve everyone.
3. Cutaway, journalist writing
4. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the TB department, WHO:
“We estimates that in 2012, there we about 450,000 new cases with MDR-TB in the world and that about 170,000 of them, so it’s more than a 1/3 died.
5. Cutaway, notebook
6. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the TB department, WHO:
“The gap in access in TB diagnostics and care is far for filed, but is now narrowing. But with the impetus od modern laboratories, which is what this project particularly did, we are on the right track finally to handle multidrug resistant TB.”
7. Cutaway, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Catharina Boehme, FIND’s Chief Executive Officer:
“Without diagnostic, medicine is blind. Yet on a global level, only 3 to 5 % of health care spending is dedicated to diagnostics.”
9. Wide shot, dais
10. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Philippe Duneton, Executive Director UNITAID:
“I think it’s a key to understand that if we want to get better access to treatment, we need also to improve the way we use the diagnostics, so innovation is key element, not only for TB, but in that case. it’s really important.”
FILE – LOCATION UNKNOWN
11. Various shots, laboratory testing for TB
Almost half a million people fell ill with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in 2012, yet less than one in four of them were diagnosed, mainly due to a lack of access to quality diagnostic services.
But with an innovative international project, 27 countries are making promising progress in diagnosing MDR-TB, says the World Health Organization (WHO) ahead of the World TB Day, 24 March.
The project known as EXPAND-TB (Expanding Access to New Diagnostics for TB), financed by UNITAID, helped to triple the number of MDR-TB cases diagnosed in participating countries.
The theme for World TB Day 2014 is “Reach the 3 Million”. One third of the estimated 9 million people falling ill with TB each year do not get the care they need.
In many countries, it is hard for people to access diagnostic services – particularly for MDR-TB. Some countries have only one central laboratory, which often has limited capacity to diagnose MDR-TB.
In some cases, patient samples have to be sent to other countries for testing. Moreover, traditional diagnostic tests can take more than 2 months to get results.
But the situation is beginning to change. New technologies can rapidly diagnose TB and drug-resistant TB in as little as two hours.
In 2009, UNITAID provided US$ 87 million to support the EXPAND-TB multi-partner project to enable effective and sustained access, and use of recommended new TB diagnostic technologies in 27 low- and middle-income countries. These countries together carry 40% of the estimated global MDR-TB burden.
The project has delivered impressive results. Over 30% of the MDR-TB cases detected globally in 2012 were from EXPAND-TB countries. 90% of India’s detected MDR-TB cases were through EXPAND-TB supported services. Use of these tests requires strengthened laboratory services. By the end of 2013, 92 laboratories were fully operational. From 2009 to 2013, the number of MDR-TB cases diagnosed in the 27 countries tripled, with 36 000 diagnosed in 2013 alone.
The project has enabled more patients to be treated with quality-assured second-line TB medicines. Through that demand, the project has helped to reduce the price of individual medicines and MDR-TB treatment regimens by one third. Prices have also dropped for diagnostic commodities.
Project partners are WHO and the Global Laboratory Initiative (GLI), the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility and FIND. Project funds have been used to purchase testing equipment and commodities, and to train laboratory technicians.
