Implementing the End TB Strategy: Well begun will be half done

摘要

A new chapter was opened in the history of tuberculosis (TB) on 19 May 2014. On that day, the delegates attending the Sixty-seventh World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva resolved to see an end to the global TB epidemic over the next two decades. Ending the TB epidemic, as explained in the "Global strategy and targets for tuberculosis prevention, care and control after 2015" adopted by the WHA, means reducing the levels of TB in the whole world to those attained by many rich countries where TB is no longer a major public health problem.2 The global strategy sets ambitious targets for 2035: reducing TB deaths in the world by 95% and reducing TB incidence rate in the world by 90%, amounting to less than ten TB cases occurring per 100,000 population per year. Making a departure from the practice of focussing only on the disease burden to monitoring progress, this strategy also sets a third target of eliminating catastrophic costs due to TB for the affected families. This target, expected to be met much sooner - by 2020 - will be a dual measure of alleviating socioeco-nomic suffering due to TB and enhancing equity in access to TB care and prevention.