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Dear colleagues, partners and friends in the fight to end TB,
I am very pleased to inform you that the UN General Assembly has adopted the Declaration of the first-ever United Nations High Level Meeting on TB. This is a historic moment for us as the adoption by the General Assembly officially marks the endorsement of the Resolution by all Member States of the UN.
The High Level Meeting brought together more than 1000 participants from around the world, including: 15 Heads of State, over 100 ministers and other country leaders, 360 representatives of civil society and other stakeholders, as well as 10 UN agencies. The event was webcast and reached millions around the world with wide media and social media coverage. Watch the webcast here.
I believe this is our moment to shine – the spotlight on Ending TB has never been brighter. Never before have there been such high level commitments by countries with concrete targets linked to it. I look forward to the coming months with great optimism, hope, and determination. We need to ride the wave of high level awareness about this top infectious killer and build on the commitments made by Heads of State, to ensure that concrete action follows quickly behind.
WHO is already moving forward rapidly on this together with countries, partners and civil society. Here are a few of our planned next steps:
- As part of WHO's core work in supporting the highest TB burden countries in translating commitments into urgent action, high level country missions have been planned. The week following the UN High Level Meeting, WHO organized a high level mission to the Philippines, including key partners.
We worked together with important stakeholders at all levels to chart a plan of accelerated action to achieve the targets of the UNHLM Declaration. Special thanks to the Philippines Secretary of the Department of Health - H.E. Francisco Tiongson Duque III for his leadership and commitment to end TB in the country.
This follows a similar successful mission to Viet Nam. We have already received requests from other high TB burden countries for such missions and technical assistance - especially for the uptake of new guidance on MDR-TB treatment and TB preventive treatment. - We will work with countries and partners including civil society, to finalize the multisectoral accountability framework and in parallel develop/strengthen accountability in countries, as requested by Member States in the 2018 World Health Assembly resolution and UNHLM Political Declaration.
- WHO will continue to strengthen its core functions on guideline development and uptake, as well as monitoring & evaluation, with a focus on country impact.
- WHO will work with countries, partners, and other stakeholders including civil society in the development of a global strategy on research and innovation.
- We look forward to strengthening our engagement with civil society through the revitalized WHO taskforce and work together with them in supporting countries to reach their targets.
- We will bring together Ministry of Health Directors of Communicable Diseases and national TB programme managers from high TB burden countries, along with partners and civil society, at the End TB Strategy Summit at The Hague in just 10 days to: review progress on reaching the End TB Strategy targets, collectively brainstorm on next steps, and plan for urgent action including on implementing the Find.Treat.All. Joint Initiative with the Stop TB Partnership and the Global Fund, and other linked initiatives.
This meeting along with other WHO-led meetings will be held in advance of the Union World Conference on Lung Health. Check out our WHO Roadmap of events around the Union Conference here. - We will hold discussions on commitments and actions to end TB as part of the broader universal health coverage agenda with countries and partners, at the Global Conference on Primary Health Care in Astana, Kazakhstan on 25-26 October.
We will regularly update you on these activities, progress and challenges as well as future steps.
I would like to close with my sincere thanks to the President of the General Assembly H.E. Ms. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés and her team who led the organization of this meeting with support from WHO and partners. I am grateful for the leadership of Ambassador Korro Bessho from the Japanese Mission to the UN and Ambassador Aubrey Webson from the Mission of Antigua & Barbuda to the UN, for co-facilitating the declaration process with Member States. Sincere appreciation to all our eminent speakers on the High Level Meeting agenda. My thanks to partners, civil society and the passionate TB survivors who joined forces to ensure successful outcomes of the high level meeting. I would like to thank our WHO leadership, and all my colleagues from across the organization.
I am personally very proud of our collective success as a community. We now need to move full speed ahead for the sake of the millions who struggle against this disease every day.
The time for action is now!
Tereza Kasaeva
Director
WHO Global TB Programme
Highlights: UN high-level meeting on TB
UNHLM-linked events
Global TB report launch
- UN Press briefing with USAID, Japanese Mission to the UN and UN Special Envoy on TB.
- UN Mission Briefing with over 30 missions.
Link to the Global TB report
Media coverage
- Wide multilingual media coverage (especially in India) on global TB report calling on countries to do more to end TB by 2030.
- Over 30 articles including in the New York Times, Washington Post, UN News, Xinhua, Huffington Post, Sputnik News, CIDRAP, El Pais, and The Telegraph, FT Health as well as publications in scientific journals in the lead up to/on the High Level Meeting.
Check out our UNHLM website for more details.
Launch of other products
- Infographic Country Profiles
- Roadmap towards Ending TB in Children and Adolescents
- Best Practices in Child and Adolescent Tuberculosis Care
- Research Priorities for Paediatric Tuberculosis
Side events
WHO co-sponsored 9 TB-related side events and participated in several others, out of the 17 TB-focused side events held around the UN High Level Meeting.
- TB Voices. Surviving the world's top infectious killer.
- Committing to end TB in children, adolescents and families.
- United to End Tuberculosis in Africa: A Continental Response.
- UNITAID/PIH Reception: Ending TB.
- Scaling-up Integrated TB/HIV Care towards Universal health Coverage.
- Leadership Side Event at United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB: “Breaking the Barriers” towards Ending TB in South East Asia Region.
- Ending HIV, TB and viral Hepatitis through Intersectoral Collaboration in Europe and Central Asia.
- Eliminating TB in 2030: Accelerating innovation and collaboration to end TB in South-East Asia.
- Youth for Health.
Media events
UNHLM media stakeout
WHO and the UN organized a Media Stakeout for journalists attending the UN High Level Meeting on TB. Speakers included Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General, Nandita Venkatesan, TB survivor, Ministers of Health of the Russian Federation and Viet Nam, and UN Special Envoy Eric Goosby.
SDG media zone
Two SDG Media Zone events were organized by WHO with the UN and the UN Foundation.
UN foundation press briefing
WHO collaborated with the UN Foundation in organizing a press briefing two days in advance of the UN High Level Meeting to brief journalists on the key expectations from the meeting.
Social media outreach
18 September, GLOBAL TB REPORT LAUNCH FACEBOOK LIVE
Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director, WHO Global TB Programme
Reached 106 000 people, received 19 000 views, 835 Reactions (Likes, Loves, Wows) and 324 shares.
26 September, UNHLM FACEBOOK LIVE/TWITTER
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Deputy Director General
Reached 18 000 people,received 4200 views, 293 Reactions (Likes, Loves, Wows) and 55 shares.
Global TB report launch
TWITTER
8 WHO tweets were promoted on the Global TB report. Our messages were seen 1 million times (Impressions), received a combined 1.7K retweets and 2.1K likes.
FACEBOOK
TB is the top infectious killer in the world infographic - it reached 176K people, got 1.2K Reactions (Likes, Loves, Wows) and 1.1K shares.
Instagram and Linkedin also received good coverage.
5 TOP FACTS video
Reached 204K people, got 833 Reactions (Likes, Loves, Wows), 1.1K shares and 29K views.
UN high-level meeting
A social media toolkit was launched in advance of the UN High Level Meeting with infographics, videos, banners and sample tweets.
TWITTER
WHO tweeted 27 times on the High Level Meeting. Our messages were seen 2 million times (Impressions), received a combined 3.5K retweets and 4.2K likes.
FACEBOOK
Common symptoms of TB infographic - it reached 131K people, got 1.63K Reactions (Likes, Loves, Wows) and 700 shares.
INSTAGRAM
WHO posted a set of stories including Nandita`s videos. Opened by more than 54K people. This is the top reach WHO has had so far on Instagram stories.