“We need to learn to treat tuberculosis (TB) as more than just a bacterium," declared Nawina Kachenga, executive director of CITAMplus and a TB survivor living with HIV. "We need to consider all the ways that it impacts families and communities and make sure we not only have the funding for testing, treatment, and care, but that we are taking down the barriers that keep people from accessing it.”
Tuberculosis (TB), an airborne disease caused by a bacterium, is the ninth highest cause of death in Indonesia. According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2017 report, Indonesia accounts for an approximate one million of over ten million TB cases in the world in 2016. With all the major risk factors trending upwards in Indonesia, TB clearly has an implication for its human and economic development.
At the 22nd International AIDS Conference, the conversation on health financing transitions is taking a new turn: can a financing transition spark another kind of transition as well, from disease programs operating in silos to a universal health coverage, “platform” approach?
A group of teenage boys huddle around Michelle in the mangroves behind Joyce Bay, a spot frequented by men who have sex with men (MSM) in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG). She asks them how regularly they have sex and whether they have been tested for HIV or tuberculosis (TB). Her questions are met with giggles, intrigue and confusion. It turned out that none of the eight present have been tested for either disease.
This year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) saw several “firsts” in its more than seven decades history. The 71st was a landmark WHA, showcasing a major shift in how the World Health Organization (WHO) engages with civil society and how it approaches global health: namely seeking to advance individual systems of care (i.e., primary health, childbirth, surgery, and diagnostics) instead of just monitoring individual diseases. Here are some key takeaways!
Dozens of men crammed into a small, dark, window-less prison cell, peering out from the barred doorway, pleading looks on their sweaty faces; this is the image I cannot forget from a week-long research trip to Haiti in 2016. Many prisons around the world are essentially factories for production of TB, including drug-resistant TB, now the single biggest infectious disease killer in the world. Unless the world tackles prison conditions, ending this disease will remain just a distant dream.
Where infectious diseases were once the scourge of humanity, non-communicable diseases now pose the greatest threat to health and well-being and the greatest disease burden on national economies, particularly in developing countries. Without immediate action that is coordinated, consolidated, and targeted to address the problem, it is already obvious that Sustainable Development Goal (SDG3) of “health for all, at all ages” — to be attained in a mere 12 years — will remain little more than a pipe dream.
The congregation of health leaders at the 2018 World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, this week, is an opportune time to shine a light on the problem of stunting in Africa and for African governments to do more to reverse the negative trends on the continent. While Africa’s land is fertile and productive, children here experience the highest rates of stunting. The contradiction can be explained by the fact that good nutrition is dependent on good agricultural practices.