CNS: tuberculosis

Showing posts with label tuberculosis. Show all posts

[video] Goa leads: After deploying 100% upfront TB molecular tests over four years ago, AI-enabled X-Rays deployed now to find TB early and accurately

Will Nepal's leadership on health spur more action on SDG-3 globally?

Nepal has demonstrated commendable progress on a range of health indices, despite myriads of challenges. Nepal is among the least developed countries currently, but due to its sustained and growing progress on a range of sustainable development indices, it is all set to do away with this tag in 2026.

The irony of current times is that despite the writing on the wall "health is a fundamental human right," the ground reality cannot be farther from the truth. Over 70% people die of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) - a significant number of them are preventable. An infectious disease like TB, which is preventable and curable, continues to be the deadliest infectious disease worldwide - especially in the Global South. When HIV combination prevention should be a reality, along with treatment as prevention, over 630,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2024 - and 1.3 million were newly diagnosed with HIV in 2024 (hardly any change when compared with 2023 data). If every life matters, then why is A for accountability, missing from global health?

IAS 2025 Affiliated Independent Event: Strengthening competencies and capacities of Global South to end AIDS, end TB, and deliver on all SDG3

Watch the recording

In lead up to 13th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2025) of which CNS is an official media partner, we welcome you to register for IAS 2025 Affiliated Independent Event on 1st July 2025 (virtual) during 11am to 2pm Rwanda/ South Africa/ Zimbabwe/ Geneva time.

"We need to design services around people, not the disease," rightly said Dr Nittaya Phanuphak. Unless point-of-care health technologies are deployed for those who are most-in-need in a person-centred and rights-based manner, we would fail to deliver on the promises enshrined in #HealthForAll and SDGs goals and targets.

Love oneself. Stay healthy. And have a health-seeking behaviour to ensure all of us get to age with rights and remain disease-free.

Vaccines (sitting on a shelf) do not save lives, but vaccination does. Only when people can access vaccines and get vaccinated in a people-centred manner, can we yield desired public health outcomes. Same goes for medicines or diagnostics or other disease prevention tools.

When TB is preventable and curable then why over 1.1 million people died of it worldwide in 2023 (as per the latest WHO Global TB Report 2024)? Even one TB death is a death too many. Most of these deaths took place in low- and middle-income countries. Unless we find what went wrong and what we could have done better, how would we ever improve TB programmes in order to avert these untimely deaths?

We cannot turn a blind eye to preventable epidemics if we are to deliver on SDGs

The epidemic-proportion diseases and untimely deaths caused by tobacco use are entirely preventable. Likewise, we have science-based tools and approaches to find all TB cases, treat all of them and prevent transmission of the disease. When even one TB or tobacco death is a death too many, how can one explain 1.25 million TB deaths and over 8 million tobacco-related deaths in 2023 alone? How can TB disease, that is entirely preventable (and curable), become the deadliest infectious disease worldwide?

The funding crises forced upon by the US government on several low- and middle-income countries is an opportunity in disguise to improve programme efficiency and outcome and invest optimally in health and development responses from domestic coffers.

A female migrant worker who lives in an urban slum in India’s national capital Delhi lost both her children to TB. When the best of standard TB diagnostics and latest treatments are available (and also made in India), even one TB death is a death too many. Over 1.25 million people died of TB worldwide in 2023, as per the latest WHO Global TB Report 2024. Every TB death is a reminder that we could have done better to prevent, find, treat TB and support those dealing with the disease.

Before 2025 World TB Day I spent a day accompanying TB affected street activists (TASA) - women who help find more TB among homeless women and female migrant workers in urban poor localities of India’s capital Delhi and link those in need to public services.

If we assume that a person who lives a few hundred metres away from one of the best TB clinics would have no problems in accessing services, then we could be in for a rude shock.

[End TB Dialogues | Podcast | हिंदी] Despite being the most populous district of Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh in India, Kangra has also led from the front in caring for largest number of people with TB in the state. Compared to the national average in India, Kangra offers TB tests to 3-4 times more people per 100,000 population.

First podcast of 2025 features Dr Rajesh Kumar Sood, District Programme Officer, National Health Mission and District TB Officer (National TB Elimination Programme) Kangra Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India. He is in conversation with CNS founder Managing Editor and Executive Director Shobha Shukla on the ongoing #100Days focussed campaign to #ReachTheUnreached people with best of TB diagnostics, treatment and prevention services in India.

Opening and closing instrumental piano music is played by a young feminist Ms Tara Shukla Iyer from UK.

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts, TuneIn, Podtail, BluBrry, Himalaya, ListenNotes, American Podcasts, CastBox FM, Ivy FM, Player FM, iVoox, and other podcast streaming platforms.

India shifting gears to get on the right track to #endTB

[हिंदी] India with the highest TB burden globally has made a drastic shift recently to reach the unreached people with free TB services. Indian government has launched a 100 days focussed campaign (7 December 2024 to 24 March 2025) to intensify progress to #endTB through improved case detection, reduction in diagnostic delays, and enhanced treatment outcomes across 347 most affected districts in 33 states of the country.