Senate briefing on World TB Day

WASHINGTON, March 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

What:

A Senate briefing, Bringing Established Methods to Scale: New Perspectives in the Changing World of TB, to discuss TB and drug-resistant TB, including multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively-drug resistant (XDR-TB), the impact on global health and the current state of surveillance, diagnosis and treatment around the world.

Who:

Co-hosts include the Global Health Council, American Thoracic Society, Stop TB Partnership and The Lilly MDR-TB Partnership.

Speakers:

• Dr. Ernesto Jaramillo, Team Leader for MDR-TB, Stop TB Department, World Health Organization
• Dr. Rachel Nugent, Center for Global Development - MDR-TB and its relation to global health
• Dr. Celine Gounder, Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS/TB Epidemic (CREATE) - The combined TB and HIV epidemic and the effects of community-based research

Moderator: Smita Baruah, Global Health Council

When:

World TB Day, Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. ET

Where:

Hart Senate Office Building, Room SH-902

Washington, DC

Why:

This year's World TB Day marks the midway point for the Global Plan to Stop TB. The plan's goals are to expand equitable access for all to quality TB diagnosis and treatment; to treat 50 million people; to save 14 million lives; to introduce in 2010 the first new TB drug in 40 years; to detect active TB through diagnostic tests at the point of care allowing rapid, sensitive and inexpensive detection by 2010; and to have a new, safe, effective and affordable vaccine by 2015.

Current TB statistics:

• There were 9.4 million new TB cases in 2008, including 1.4 million cases among people living with HIV
• 1.8 million people died from TB in 2008, including 500,000 people with HIV - equal to 4,500 deaths a day
• TB is a leading killer of people with HIV
• Today's TB drugs are more than 40 years old and must be taken for at least six to nine months for drug-susceptible tuberculosis
• MDR-TB is a form of TB that is difficult and expensive to treat and fails to respond to standard first-line drugs.  There were an estimated 500,000 new MDR-TB cases in 2007. Just over 1% of cases were receiving treatment in 2008 known to be based on WHO's recommended standards
• XDR-TB, which occurs when resistance to second-line drugs develops on top of MDR-TB, been found in 57 countries to date