Lithuania hosts a briefing on MDR-TB in Europe for EU member states

On 10 October, prominent speakers were invited to the Lithuanian Permanent Representation to the EU to brief Health Attachés of the different member states’ representations in Brussels on the issue of Tuberculosis and Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Europe. WHO Europe, the ECDC, the STOP TB Partnership, the TB Europe Coalition, the European Commission and 10 member states (France, Estonia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Belgium, Latvia and Lithuania) were present to discuss the topic and potential for future EU action. Here is a summary of the main points that were addressed:

• TB rates in the EU are slowly decreasing overall, not fast enough to reach the MDGs. However Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR) TB is becoming an epidemic on its own. The European region has the highest rates of MDR-TB among new TB cases (over 30% in some countries) in the world, and bears 25% of the global MDR-TB burden.

• Treatment success rates in the EU are way below targets: only 1 out of 3 patient is successfully treated, which represents some of the lowest treatment success rate in the world. In some countries of the EU it is as low as 16% treatment success rate.

• Key donors who are providing tremendous support to the fight against TB and HIV in the European region such as the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria and USAID, are currently phasing out their support to refocus their aid to lower-income countries. The European Commission (DG DEVCO) has been one of the most vocal in the Global Fund Board to push for the Global Fund withdrawal of our region. The region is now becoming too rich to be benefitting from international aid. By 2017, most of the countries of the wider region, will no longer be eligible for this key external support.

• Can we silently expect the 17 high burden MDR-TB countries of the region to step up their responses and allocate sufficient domestic funding to fill these gaps and make sure we do not scale back on progresses already made so far?

• There is great potential for political action during the “transition” period between 2014 and 2017. If we do not allocate sufficient political attention to the issue at the national and regional level, we can only expect MDR-TB to continue spreading on an even larger scale, meaning a greater economic burden for the countries (MDR-TB treatment costs up to 450 times more than normal TB) as well as greater human suffering.

• The issue of MDR-TB is not only affecting vulnerable groups, nor does it affect only “some” countries of the region. It affects us all. TB anywhere is TB everywhere. TB doesn’t respect borders and is spread by air. We are now learning the hard way with Ebola, how an epidemic can spiral out of control. We need to act NOW if we are to control the epidemic before it is too late.

• More attention from the European Institutions can make a big difference in the fight against TB and MDR-TB in the European region, but TB needs to be put on the political agenda at the highest level.

• The upcoming Latvian Presidency will prioritise TB on its health agenda and will be organising the 1st Ministerial Meeting on TB and MDR-TB in Riga, as a side event of the Eastern Partnership Summit. This will convene Ministers of Health, but also Ministers of Welfare, Ministers of Finance and other Ministers with the aim of adopting a political declaration. More briefing on the issue at Brussels level are also planned.

• It was widely agreed among member states present during the briefing, that action should urgently be taken on TB. Council Conclusions would have a lot of political weight, but concrete actions need to be taken as well. This should be more widely discussed with other upcoming Presidencies as well as other EU institutions.

Members of the TB Europe Coalition would now like to meet the new EU Health Commissioner: former Lithuanian Health Minister Mr Vytenis Andriukaitis to discuss future EU action and activities during the Latvian Presidency and beyond.

Source: TB Europe Coalition