Unitaid: Online consultation on TB
Unitaid is seeking concrete, high-level suggestions and ideas on possible solutions to overcome challenges in tuberculosis that would be a good fit for the Unitaid strategy and operating model. As part of this online consultation, Unitaid will host a webinar to provide further context to those who would like to participate:
Webinar: March 19, 2018, 15:00 CET (19:30 IST/10:00 EDT).
To attend, please send email to: cscott@unitaid.who.int
Attendance for the webinar is optional and the online consultation can be completed at any point until April 20.
This online consultation may inform future work but should not be considered a call for proposals and Unitaid will not fund ideas submitted directly to the consultation.
To participate in the online consultation, please click here.
About Unitaid
Unitaid is a hosted partnership of the World Health Organization (WHO). Our mission is to maximize the effectiveness of the global health response by catalysing access to better health products, notably for HIV, TB, malaria, hepatitis C and other co-infections of HIV. We also have an interest in integrated approaches benefiting reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health.
We contribute to global efforts to end these diseases by making time-limited investments. Our projects ramp up access to health products for those who need them most. For example, our work may bring better preventive tools, medicines and diagnostics to market; stabilize supply of critical health products; and make them more affordable. For more information see Unitaid’s Strategy and How we work.
Context
Significant progress has been made in the fight against TB, but the burden of TB remains high with 10.4 million people falling ill and 1.7 million dying in 2016 (including 400,000 people co-infected with TB/HIV). Also, roughly 30% or 4.1 million people with TB go undiagnosed, untreated and missed continuing to spread the disease.[1]
Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), considered a global health crisis by WHO, is a growing problem. Multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is the most prevalent among diseases with antimicrobial resistance (AMR), responsible for one-third of all deaths caused by AMR.[2] In 2016, less than 12% of DR-TB cases were cured.[3]
While the innovation pipeline promises new tools, change in diagnosing and treating TB has historically been slow. Archaic technologies and old drugs are still used to diagnosis and treat. New medicines for drug-resistant TB have launched since 2012 – the first in 40 years – but to date less than 10% of eligible patients have received these new drugs.[4] Unitaid and others will need to proactively support innovation to realize the full potential of new tools in ending the TB epidemic.
Unitaid has developed, through its disease narratives and areas of intervention (AfIs), a systematic approach of identifying challenges and opportunities in HIV, TB and malaria and prioritizing those challenges and opportunities that Unitaid is best positioned to address. The challenges and opportunities facing progress in ending tuberculosis continue to evolve. As part of its approach, Unitaid conducts regular partner consultations to ensure it invests in the innovations and market interventions most needed by the community. Through this online consultation, Unitaid seeks feedback and ideas from a broad range of voices to inform its work.
[2] https://www.tballiance.org/why-new-tb-drugs/antimicrobial-resistance
[4] https://www.msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/TB_Brief_Four_Years_and_Counting_ENG_2017.pdf
Source: Unitaid
