WHA approves Post-2015 Global TB Strategy and Targets

Geneva | 19 May 2014| The World Health Assembly, convened annually by WHO at the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva, passed a resolution approving with full support the new post-2015 Global TB Strategy with its ambitious targets. The strategy aims to end the global TB epidemic, with targets to reduce TB deaths by 95% and to cut new cases by 90% between 2015 and 2035, and to ensure that no family is burdened with catastrophic expenses due to TB. It sets interim milestones for 2020, 2025, and 2030.

The resolution calls on governments to adapt and implement the strategy with high-level commitment and financing. It reinforces a focus within the strategy on serving populations highly vulnerable to infection and poor health care access, such as migrants. The strategy and resolution highlight the need to engage partners within the health sector and beyond, such as in the fields of social protection, labour, immigration and justice. The resolution requests the WHO Secretariat to help Member States adapt and operationalize the strategy, noting the importance of tackling the problem of multidrug-resistant TB and promoting collaboration across international borders. WHO is also asked to monitor implementation and evaluate progress towards the milestones and the 2035 targets.

The estimated number of people falling ill with tuberculosis each year is slowly declining and the world is on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal to reverse the spread of TB by 2015. However, TB remains one of the world’s deadliest communicable diseases, present in all regions of the world. In 2012, 8.6 million people fell ill with TB and 1.3 million died from TB. Some 450 000 people developed multidrug-resistant TB in 2012.

• Factsheet: Post-2015 Global TB Strategy
• WHO report on the post-2015 TB Strategy and targets (as presented to the World Health Assembly)

Source: WHO