This public workshop is the first in a two-part series that examines the innovations needed to meet the targets for ending tuberculosis (TB) set by the World Health Organization's END TB Strategy for 2030. “Innovations for Tackling Tuberculosis in the Time of COVID-19” will feature presentations and discussions that will consider the development of affordable point-of-care tuberculosis diagnostic tests, improvements in TB care, how to utilize the existing TB platform in low-to-middle-income countries to address COVID-19 and other airborne infections in order to prevent future pandemics, and how to ensure increased and sustained commitments to reach the goal of ending TB in high burden countries despite the challenges from COVID-19.
The first part of this workshop provided an update on the current status, unmet needs, and promising advances in diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, and the critical need for new business models in sustainably combating TB. A recording of the meeting is available below.
The second part of the workshop will examine in more detail the recent technological innovations and lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic that hold promise in the global fight to end TB, as well as challenges in the implementation of new technologies. Finally, workshop participants will discuss the recognition of TB as one of the most deadly infectious diseases around the world, and its place in the global health security and pandemic preparedness agenda.
BACKGROUND
Despite being preventable and curable, tuberculosis (TB) has long been the world’s deadliest infectious disease and continues to kill 1.4 million and sicken 10 million new people each year, disproportionately stricking the poorest and most vulnerable communities around the world. Unfortunately, COVID-19 and its mitigation efforts have taken a devastating toll on countries with the highest burden of TB disease and the global TB response, threatening to reverse up to eight years of progress. Recent modeling exercises project that between 2020 and 2025, the initial impact in 2020 of the COVID-19 pandemic will result in an additional 1.4 million TB deaths.
With support from the United States Agency for International Development, a planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has organized this workshop to consider the science behind the innovations required to bring TB diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and political commitment to the 21st century and achieve the ambitious targets set by the United Nations High-Level Meeting on the Fight Against Tuberculosis and WHO.
Workshop committee
- Gail Cassell, Harvard Medical School (co-chair)
- Kenneth Castro, Emory University (co-chair)
- Emily Abraham, Johnson & Johnson
- Andrew Clements, United States Agency for International Development
- Lucica Ditiu, Stop TB Partnership
- Marcos Espinal, Pan American Health Organization
- Hamidah Hussain, IRD
- Tereza Kasaeva, World Health Organization
- Kent Kester, Sanofi Pasteur
- Monique K. Mansoura, MITRE
- Peter Sands, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
- Charles Wells, Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute
For additional information on this workshop and committee members, please visit the main project page.