Brazzaville, 24 March 2006 -- African countries have been urged to prioritize tuberculosis (TB) by allocating adequate resources for its control and increasing access to TB prevention, treatment and care services.

“In the context of the Resolution of the Ministers of Health of the African Region adopted in August 2005 in Maputo declaring TB a public Health Emergency, TB control must be prioritized and adequate resources allocated for its control” said WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis G. Sambo, in a message to mark World TB Day, observed across the globe on 24 March.

In the message, released in Brazzaville on Friday, Dr Sambo outlined urgent measures that countries should take to curb the epidemic that disproportionately affects countries in the African region.

He advised national governments to develop and implement district by district annual operational emergency plans of action to increase DOTS coverage, and to detect and successfully cure infectious TB cases.

“We must also pay attention to actions against key social determinants of health, especially poverty, (as) the poor and marginalized are often the most afflicted by TB, and also the least likely to access basic diagnostic and treatment services”, the Regional Director said.

Other measures he proposed include decentralizing quality assured laboratory networks, scaling up TB/HIV interventions, and increasing the involvement of patients and communities in the planning and delivery of services.

Current WHO estimates show that Africa, with just 11% of the world’s population, accounts for about a quarter of the global TB burden, with an estimated 2.4 million cases and 500,000 deaths in the region every year.

Although “the TB epidemic continues to be a matter of great concern in the region, there is reason for hope because of the availability of DOTS services in almost all countries in the region and the steady rise in case detection and treatment success rates”, Dr Sambo said.

“Approximately 80% of the population has access to DOTS services, especially the in the public health sector. Case detection rates have been increasing and global estimates show that even though incidence continues to rise, the rate of increase has showed down”, he added.

The Regional Director also expressed satisfaction with increasing political commitment by health actors nationally, regionally and internationally to fight TB in Africa.

According to him, examples of this commitment include the declaration of TB as an emergency by the region’s health ministers in 2005; the resolution by African Union health ministers in Gaborone, Botswana, also in 2005, to address TB, among other diseases of poverty; and an earlier commitment, in 2001, by African leaders to combat HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria through the scaling up of effective interventions.

Dr Sambo alluded to increased financial resources to control TB from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and malaria, free drug grants from the Global Drug facility as well as the launch by the Stop TB Partnership in January 2005 of a Global Plan to Stop TB during the period 2006-2015.

“All these are real opportunities to help bring TB under control in line with regional, World Health Assembly and the Millennium Development Goal targets”, he concluded.

For more information contact:

Technical contact

Dr Wilfred Nkhoma

Tel: + 47 241 38071

Email: nkhomaw [at] whoafr.org

Media contact

Samuel  Ajibola 

Tel. + 47 241 39378 

Email: ajibolas [at] afro.who.int