Leaders’ Voices

The global target for eliminating TB is 2030, but I announce that the target for India to eliminate TB is 2025, five years before the global target. TB mainly affects the poorest of the poor and every step taken towards the elimination of this disease is a step towards improving the lives of the poor.

Narendra Modi / Prime Minister

You do not need to keep the child at home. All a person needs to do is to keep a check on the child and  the state government is committed to make Uttar Pradesh Tuberculosis (TB) free.

Yogi Adityanath / Chief Minister UP

The children suffering from TB need proper medicine and nutrition to recover in six months. If people will try to take care of them by visiting their places, it would boost their morale.

Anandiben Patel / Governor of UP

Theme of World Tuberculosis Day 2021

The theme of World Tuberculosis Day 2021 is ‘The Clock is Ticking’. The theme has been chosen as it “conveys the sense that the world is running out of time to act on the commitments to end TB made by global leaders,” WHO said in its statement. The organisation also added that as the world faces the challenges posed by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, strides made in control of TB are at great risk.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include ending the TB epidemic by 2030 under Goal 3. The Strategy: Provides a unified response to ending TB deaths, disease, and suffering.

On the cusp of the 21st century, the United Nations (UN) established 8 Millennium Development Goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all. These goals were further extended to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a renewed target of attainment by 2030. Sustainable Development Goal 3 seeks to ensure good health and well-being for all with one of the primary targets being the eradication of Tuberculosis (TB) by 2030.

Tuberculosis has been in existence since time immemorial. Despite the progress made over the last decade, it continues to remain a major global public health problem claiming over 4,000 lives a day. According to the report by World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 100 crore people are suffering from TB globally and India alone accounts for around 27 per cent of these cases. While the elimination of TB seems a herculean task, India under the aegis of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi India has accorded high priority for eliminating the disease by 2025, five years ahead of the SDG target. 

The clock is ticking! A World TB Day campaign for action!

On World TB Day, WHO calls on everyone to keep the promise to:

  • Accelerate the End TB Response to reach the targets set in Sustainable Development Goals, WHO End TB Strategy, the Moscow Declaration to End TB and the political declaration of the UN High-Level Meeting on TB.
  • Diagnose and treat 40 million people with TB by 2022 including 3.5 million children and 1.5 million people with drug-resistant TB. This is in line with WHO’s overall drive towards Universal Health Coverage and the WHO Director General’s flagship initiative “Find. Treat. All. #EndTB” jointly with the Global Fund and Stop TB Partnership.
  • Reach 30 million people with TB preventive treatment by 2022 so that those people most at risk receive TB preventive treatment, including 24 million household contacts of TB patients – 4 million of whom are children under 5 – and 6 million people living with HIV.
  • Mobilize sufficient and sustainable financing to reach USD 13 billion a year to support efforts to end TB; for every USD 1 invested to end TB, USD 43 is returned as the benefits of a healthy functioning society (Economist/ Copenhagen Consensus).
  • Invest in TB research to reach at least USD 2 billion a year for better science, better tools and better delivery.

THE CLOCK IS TICKING. IT’S TIME TO KEEP OUR PROMISES. IT’S TIME TO #END TB.