Bono On The Passage of PEPFAR

Yesterday afternoon, President Bush signed into law new PEPFAR legislation, finalizing months of work by ONE members, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, advocacy organizations, foreign policy experts and medical professionals who worked together to pass historic new funding levels to fight AIDS, TB and malaria.

ONE Campaign Co-founder Bono issued this response:

“Americans, whether they know it or not, are literally saving the lives of millions of people in the poorest places on the planet. In the last five years, America has prevented 1 million women from passing on HIV to their babies…funded care for 3 millions AIDS orphans…and provided desperately needed medicine to more than 1.4 million people suffering from HIV/AIDS. You are my heroes and not just for what you’ve done, but for what this new law promises.

This has more to do with hard heads than soft hearts. America’s global AIDS plan has proved to be a smart investment, paying dividends in live saved, communities stabilized and America’s reputation in the world growing a little bit brighter. This stuff works and leaders from left and right — leaders like Senators Biden and Lugar, Representatives Berman and Ros-Lehtinen, President Bush, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid - put aside their differences and agreed to do more.”

Together We Can FIGHT TB!

Many think that TB has been eliminated from the U.S., but this is far from true. The poster on the left was created by the Red Cross in 1919, promising that tuberculosis would be “The Next To Go.” But this dreaded disease has not yet gone.

One-third of the world’s population is infected with the bacteria that causes TB, and one in ten of those infected develop active TB disease.

What is the U.S. doing to stop TB? Not enough. U.S. and global efforts to combat TB are falling short.

The U.S. House of Representatives is now considering the Comprehensive TB Elimination Act, which would greatly expand our efforts to combat TB, including the development of new, effective drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines.

How can you help? Tell your legislators to co-sponsor the Comprehensive TB Elimination Act (H.R. 1532). Call 1-800-828-0498.

Your immediate action can help curb the TB pandemic.

The current TB vaccine was introduced in the early 1900s, and over time, its effectiveness has greatly diminished. What is more, strains of TB have developed that are resistant to all of our major anti-TB drugs.

Take action now. Call 1-800-828-0498. Tell your Representative to co-sponsor the Comprehensive TB Elimination Act (H.R. 1531) to prevent the spread of drug resistant TB in the U.S. and to develop new medical tools to fight TB.

Please note that while ALL legislators need to hear from you, it is especially important to call if you are from key, target states(Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia). Click here to find your elected official.

Thank you for fighting TB with us.

Summary of the bill

-Christine Kim, Families USA

There’s no home-ish like Snohomish

Snohomish RESULTS and The Snohomish County Health District (a community north of Seattle) held very inspiring event to honor World Tuberculosis Day (TB) at at the Wired & Unplugged Internet Coffeehouse and the region’s ONE members came out to support.

TB is the leading cause of death worldwide among women. More than nine million people are infected and nearly two million lives are lost to TB globally . Over one-third of the population of the earth has been exposed to the bacterium and is according to the World Health Organization, a new case develops every second. Not everyone infected develops the full blown disease, but one in ten will, and without prompt and thorough care, will die from this disease.

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World Tuberculosis Day - March 24

Today is World Tuberculosis Day.

Last week, the WHO released it’s newest study on the disease, reporting that while TB cases have been slowly falling since 2003, a drug-resistant strain of TB (MDR-TB) is on a steep rise. Worldwide we can expect about 9 million new cases of TB this year, and 500,000 new cases of MDR-TB.

Learn more at the World TB Day site.

And scroll though the ONE Blog’s “TB” tag for our recent postings.

Including:

• Alexandra Fullem’s (of the the Global Health Council) excellent account of the Congressional briefing in honor of World TB Day on the 13th and the status of TB overall.
• A summary of the WHO’s February report on TB and MDR-TB
• A LA Times editorial urging world leaders for more funding to fight the drug-resistant strain of TB.

And more.

World TB Day

(Alexandra Fullem works for the Global Health Council)

Yesterday the Global Health Council, Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and the American Thoracic Society hosted a Congressional briefing in honor of World TB Day 2008. We learned from our 3 speakers more about the threat of MDR and XDR TB, more about the perfect storm of TB/HIV co-infection and about the great work that is being done in the push to find a vaccine. The speakers were Dr. Payam Nahid from the University of California, San Francisco, Thomas Kenyon from the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator and Sylvie Kwedie from the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation.

So, why is TB, an ancient disease, continuing to plague us after 5000 years? There are many reasons and the speakers outlined these for us. The first is poverty. The disease spreads quickly through the air and so we are all at risk, but those living in poverty even more so. The second is the rise of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 1/3 of the population is carrying a latent form of TB. Once your immune system is compromised it becomes much more likely you will progress to active TB. In fact, TB is the leading cause of death for HIV patients with up to 40% of HIV deaths being TB related. The third reason that TB is still with us is poor TB control programs worldwide and poor laboratory capabilities, especially in endemic countries.

A fourth reason is that the drugs we are using to treat TB all date from the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s.We are treating this disease with very old technology.

This, together with (more…)

Drug-Resistant TB Rate Rising

The World Health Organization (WHO) published their largest survey ever on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) on Tuesday. In summary, MDR-TB is more prevalent, and more in need of control, than ever.

“TB drug resistance needs a frontal assault. If countries and the international community fail to address it aggressively now we will lose this battle,” said Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the WHO Stop TB Department. “In addition to specifically confronting drug-resistant TB and saving lives, programmes worldwide must immediately improve their performance in diagnosing all TB cases rapidly and treating them until cured, which is the best way to prevent the development of drug resistance.”

Read the full study here, some key findings below:

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• The WHO estimates that there are nearly 500,000 new cases of MDR-TB each year, about 5% of the approximately 9 million new cases of regular TB per year
• The highest rates of MDR-TB were found in countries in the former Soviet Union and China. China and India carry about half the global burden of MDR-TB and the former Soviet states another 7%. Rwanda had a noticeably high percentage of MDR-TB cases among TB patients (3.9%), but data on MDR-TB presence in Africa was rather limited in the study.
• Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), a virtually untreatable form of TB, has been recorded in 45 countries.
• Surveys in Latvia and the Ukraine found nearly twice the level of MDR-TB among TB patients living with HIV compared to those without. In South Africa, 44% of TB patients are estimated to be co-infected with HIV.
• MDR-TB and XDR-TB are progressively more expensive and difficult to treat.

The WHO estimates that $4.8 billion is needed for overall TB control in low and middle income countries in 2008, with $1 billion for MDR-TB and XDR-TB. There is a total finance gap for 2008 of $ 2.5 billion, including a $ 500 million gap for MDR-TB and XDR-TB.

TB (control), or not TB (control)

There’s an important editorial in the LA Times today about drug-resistant tuberculosis.

A couple of excerpts:

“A new survey by the World Health Organization shows that drug-resistant tuberculosis is even more widespread than had been feared — on average, it’s present in 5% of new TB cases. That’s 500,000 drug-resistant cases a year. If most Americans aren’t concerned by this, it’s because they don’t yet understand that drug-resistant tuberculosis is no longer a disease that threatens mainly HIV and AIDS patients and the Third World poor. It threatens us all. Worldwide, only 8% of TB cases occur in HIV/AIDS patients…

Even after the panic last year caused by Andrew Speaker, the jet-setting honeymooner found to have MDR TB, funding to stop the disease has lagged. The WHO, which gets its money from United Nations member states, estimates it needs $4.8 billion for global TB control. But despite increases in funding from the U.S., Britain and private donors, it still faces a $2.5-billion shortfall.

You can read the full piece here.

PEPFAR Movement

Late Tuesday night, bipartisan cooperation in the House Foreign Affairs Committee moved us one critical step closer to approving the 5-year expansion of the “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” or “PEPFAR.”

The legislation they passed yesterday, “The Lantos-Hyde US Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria Act” would transition PEPFAR from an emergency response to a sustainable response program, and provide for expanded training for 140,000 new health care professionals and community care workers. The bill also strongly focuses on prevention and includes comprehensive efforts that place a special emphasis on women and on the underlying factors which make them vulnerable to HIV infection, including a focus on violence against women.

In all, the U.S. would provide lifesaving treatment for at least three million AIDS patients; prevent 12 million new infections; provide care for five million AIDS orphans; and train and support 140,000 new health professionals. The bill also provides $4 billion for the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis and $5 billion to fight malaria.

Although the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s action this week marks a critical momentum shift for PEPFAR’s reauthorization, the full House must continue to uphold this commitment to bipartisanship and pass the the bill (protecting all provisions) during a House floor vote.

-Virginia Simmons

Yay for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/health/19briefs-gates.html?ref=health

Good news in the fight against tuberculosis: on Tuesday the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a total of $280 million in grants for tuberculosis vaccine development, drug discovery and diagnostics. Tuberculosis has infected an estimated one-third of the people on earth, and kills almost 2 million people each year. The world’s poorest countries have been hit hard by the epidemic. The targeted funding will help to reduce the global tuberculosis burden.

New technology for preventing, diagnosing and treating tuberculosis is desperately needed. The current vaccine is more than 80 years old and rarely works after childhood. Tuberculosis drugs are becoming less and less effective as drug resistance rises. As a result, the current drugs must be administered through the Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course (DOTS) method, where health care providers must witness patients completing the drug regimen over a period of months to prevent further drug resistance. The need for new diagnostic tools was publically illustrated earlier this year when U.S. citizen Andrew Speaker exposed fellow travelers to an extensively drug resistant strain (XDR-TB) of the disease.

This new round of Gates funding has the potential to save many lives, and helping to stop the spread of tuberculosis.

-Elizabeth Gregg, ONE Government Affairs & Policy Intern

TB Bill Passes!

The Brown-Durbin-Brownback-Boxer amendment to increase TB funding passed the Senate yesterday as part of the FY08 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill.

The amendment would provide an additional $90 million in funding, bringing the U.S. total investment for TB assistance to $200 million!

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH):

“Tuberculosis kills 1.6 million people a year in developing countries…Unchecked, drug resistant TB, including deadly XDR-TB, threatens to reverse progress made against AIDS and TB worldwide. In today’s world, extensively drug-resistant TB poses a grave public health threat never more than a plane ride away.”