Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya delivers keynote address at the Ministerial meeting – Sustain, Accelerate and Innovate to end TB in South East Asia
Collaborative efforts, equitable access to diagnostic prevention, and treatment
options are pivotal to ending TB as demonstrated by the pandemic: Dr Mansukh
Mandaviya
Combating the prevalent stigma against TB in the society, India has been
committed to providing, enabling and patient-centric support to all,
individuals suffering from TB: Dr Mansukh Mandaviya
I commend India for its innovative approach, multi-sector partnership efforts,
and funding for ending TB. This has given inspiration to other countries: Dr
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Significant milestone of the signing of Gandhinagar Declaration expressing
confidence that the WHO SEARO Region will be able to end TB by 2030 with
unrelenting, concerted and synergistic actions in the right direction by all
Member States with the support of partners, stakeholders and communities
“Collective and collaborative efforts within
South East Asian Region countries would be key to ending TB.” This was stated
by the Union Health Minister, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya delivered keynote address at the Ministerial meeting – Sustain, Accelerate and
Innovate to end TB in the South-East Asia Region co-chaired by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, WHO at
Gandhinagar today. They were joined by Dr
Hans Henri Kluge, WHO
Regional Director for Europe, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Director, WHO SEARO today.
Health
Ministers of Member States of the WHO
South- East Asia Region Zahid Maleque Minister of Health and
Family Welfare, Bangladesh, Lyonpo Dechen Wangmo, Minister of Health, Bhutan, Safiyya
Mohammed Saeed, Deputy Minister of Health, Maldives, Mohan Bahadur Basnet, Minister
of Health and Population, Nepal, Dr Keheliya Rambukwella, Minister of
Health, Sri Lanka also participated in the event. Budi G Sadikin,
Minister of Health of the Republic of Indonesia shared a recorded message
virtually. Dra Odete da Silva Viegas, Director General of Health
Services, Timor-Leste, Francoise Vanni, Director of External Relations and
Communications, Global Fund also participated in the event.
The
event witnessed a significant milestone in the signing of the Gandhinagar
Declaration, the joint declaration by the Health Ministers and WHO SEARO.
The Declaration is cognizant that despite progress, the SE Asia Region has
missed the 2020 milestones of the End TB Strategy and the 2022 coverage targets
as per the political commitment made during the UN High-Level Meeting on TB
(UNHLM-TB) in New York on 26 September 2018. It expresses confidence that the
WHO SEARO Region will be able to end TB by 2030 with unrelenting, concerted and
synergistic actions in the right direction by all Member States with the
support of partners, stakeholders and communities. The Gandhinagar Declaration
commends the initiatives taken by Member States to enhance community approach
against tuberculosis such as nutritional support to patients by individuals and
groups, family-centric care, and financial support to patients for nutrition-
and treatment-related transportation, which accelerates progress towards better
outcomes and also reduces stigma.
Lauding
the visionary leadership of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, Dr Mandaviya
reiterated India’s commitment of eliminating TB from India by 2025, five years
ahead of the global Sustainable Development Goals. Dr Mandaviya noted
collaborative efforts, equitable access to diagnostic prevention, and treatment
options are pivotal to ending TB as demonstrated by the pandemic. Elaborating
further, he added “combating the prevalent stigma against TB in the society, India
has been committed to providing, enabling and patient-centric support to all,
individuals suffering from TB.”
The
Health Minister elaborated “India has leveraged the power of data-driven
decisions by developing its own mathematical model to estimate TB burden using
local evidence. Through its dedicated efforts, India has achieved a 13%
reduction in TB incidence and a 15% decrease in mortality from 2015 to 2022,
performing better than global averages.” He further added “Through enhanced
private sector engagement and sustainable models the notification of TB has
improved by as high as 7 times in the past decade.” Highlighting the ‘RATION’
trail which was recently published, Dr Mandaviya stated “it validates the
importance of nutrients in reducing, TB mortality as well as incidence.”
In
its mission to eliminate TB and combat stigma, the Health Minister enumerated
measures of implementing a family-centric care model, a first of its kind
community engagement mechanism known as ‘Ni-kshay Mitras’ under Pradhan Mantri
TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan to provide additional nutritional, diagnostic, and
vocational support to TB patients. He further added Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana
initiative for providing monthly nutritional support to those on TB treatment
through Direct Benefit Transfer. It has successfully provided 7.5 million TB
patients with over $244 million in their respective bank accounts.
Lauding the
progress and efforts for combating TB, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated “I
applaud the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Health Minister
Dr Mansukh Mandaviya for their remarkable steps towards ending TB.” He further
added “I commend India for its innovative approach, multi-sector partnership
efforts, and funding for ending TB. This has given inspiration to other
countries.” He stressed that global health crisis such as the pandemic have
reversed the progress gained in many countries, and though the goal of
eliminating TB by 2030 seems ambitious, it is still achievable. He further
added “We have new and powerful tools which reduce testing times, which are
game- changers in treatment and healing of TB patients.”
Sudhansh Pant,
Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare shared best practices
implemented in India in combating TB thus far, and enumerated measures on way
forward stating “there is an increasing focus on prevention more than cure”.
Leading the measures is expansion of prevention interventions, followed by
galvanizing community support, decentralized TB services through health and
wellness centres, He further recommended the use of technology using AI,
adopting newer evidence-based drugs and diagnostics and driving innovation in
programme operations.
Dr Poonam
Khetrapal Singh emphasized on allocating adequate and sustainable domestic
resources to meet TB service coverage targets, building on the substantial
increases already achieved and stated “We must continue to engage and empower
TB-affected communities, not just listening to but truly hearing them.” She
highlighted that it is imperative to “actively accelerate access to new TB
tools, technologies and treatment regimens that are people-centred, and which
are delivered at the primary health care level, within the community.” She
further added the vision of a South-East Asia Region where TB is no longer a
public health problem, menacing millions of people with disease, death,
poverty, and despair will require the highest the highest level of political
and operational commitment. Elaborating further, Dr Poonam stated “I urge
leaders from each country to establish a high-level multisectoral commission on
TB, which could also help build health systems resilience and advance universal
health coverage and health security.” Addressing the gathering she said
“Together we are bending the curve, and must now accelerate momentum, shaping
history to our will. Let us seize the moment; together, let us end TB.”
Hailing the
transformative progress of treatment for TB, Dr Hans Henri Kluge stated “this
is a revolution, that we now have a treatment regimen that reduces testing time from three days to two
hours and treatment regimens that reduce treatment time from eighteen months to
six months.”
Dr Atul Goel, Director General Health Services, Lamchonghoi Sweety Changsan, Additional Secretary and Mission Director (NHM), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Vishal Chauhan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government Officials, WHO officials, senior leaders of health organizations and agencies (ADB, Gates Foundation, Global Fund to Fight AIDS TB Malaria, JATA, Stop TB partnership, The Union, UNAIDS, UNITAID, World Bank, and others), academics, civil society organizations, high level representatives from partner countries of Australia, Japan, South Korea, United Kingdom and the United States also attended the event.