Fight Against TB Good Model to Achieve Global Health Security: Dr Lucica Ditiu

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Dr Lucica Ditiu, a global public health expert and Executive Director of Geneva-based Stop TB Partnership, today warned that the world is likely to be frequently confronted with airborne diseases like Covid-19 which “has brought us to our knees,” but such problems can be overcome by using the experience gained from t/he Tuberculosis Elimination Programme.

In her special address on the concluding day of the international health webinar “Kerala Health: Making the SDG a reality,” Dr Ditiu lauded the state and India for their efforts to eliminate TB by 2025 and said this experience would be of great help to other countries on the global south and go a long way in achieving global health security.

“The world feels threatened by future air-borne diseases, similar to Covid-19, as we will have this kind of problems more and more,” she said at a session on “Moving towards TB Elimination – A Call for Action.” The five-day webinar series, which began February 17, is organized by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala.

At present, the world was looking at how it was hit by Covid and how underprepared it was to deal with the pandemic. There was a close link between TB and other airborne diseases such as Covid which were also airborne, she pointed out.

“We will try to organize more South-South collaboration so that Kerala and India can share their successful model for elimination of TB,” she said without elaborating.

She also advised Kerala and India to look for donors to ramp up their TB eradication programme for which they had nevertheless allocated huge resources.

Dr Guy B Marks, professor of Respiratory Medicine at University of New South Wales in Sydney, said global strategies against Covid-19 are working as lessons to control another infectious disease as serious as tuberculosis.

The way humanity checked the spread of the novel coronavirus reinforces the basic point that infectious diseases are curtailed by reducing or stopping transmission, he told the session.

Dr Marks said the efficacy of containing pandemic shows that public health measures do work. “Political commitment and social cohesion really matter. The places that these two exist have managed to stem the surge of spread of infectious diseases . We know from Covid-19 that it is possible to control the virus even without treatment. A vaccine would be helpful, but it is not essential.”

As for TB, countries need to focus on interventions that target the drivers of the life-threatening disease that affects the lungs, the expert said. “Many cases of TB are asymptomatic and, thus, do not seek care. We must dismantle the barriers on the path to commencing treatment and ensuring its effective completion.”

Dr Marks, who is also president of the Paris-headquartered International Union against TB and Lung Diseases which address health challenges in the world’s low- and middle-income populations, highlighted social distancing, reduced crowding and better ventilation as key to checking the disease. “Treatment of latent tuberculosis is just one of many interventions that are available to us to prevent TB,” he added.