Stop TB Partnership's new initiative to increase access to two new life-saving TB medicines

The Stop TB Partnership's Global Drug Facility (GDF) will announce a new initiative to increase access to bedaquiline and delamanid - the two new life-saving medicines recently approved for the treatment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (TB). The GDF will share how it is expanding existing and developing new public-private partnerships to expedite and maximize access to these two critical medicines.

For all of our human ingenuity and advances - which have helped billions of people live longer and healthier, there are far too many left behind. These challenges, however, can push stakeholders to innovate in new and exciting ways to generate scientific, medical, and delivery breakthroughs that can improve the health of people worldwide. We need new options and approaches. We need engagement and partnership on a greater scale than ever before.

In spite of all the efforts made, people diagnosed and enrolled on the right treatment for MDR or XDR-TB are a small fraction of all those in need. The cure rates of those lucky enough to be enrolled in treatment remains at just 48%. Therefore, the uptake of these two new drugs is extremely important and urgently needed.

The Stop TB Partnership's new Global Plan to End TB 2016-2020 makes it clear that what is needed to end TB is a paradigm shift - a change in the way we fight TB at every level, in every community, in every health facility, in every country, in partnership. The Plan calls for a change in the way we work and engage with the private sector, it calls for the development of much-needed new tools against TB, diagnostics, vaccines and shorter acting regimens as well as new and innovative ways to increase access to them for all those in need.

This high level panel discussion is held on the side of an experience-sharing workshop on the introduction of new drugs for drug-resistant TB treatment in the World Health Organization's SEARO and WPRO regions.

Experts from the Stop TB Partnership's Global Drug Facility, World Health Organization, people affected by TB, Janssen, and Otsuka will discuss challenges and opportunities to increase access to bedaquiline and delamanid, including the role the Stop TB Partnership at large and especially GDF, will play in promoting access and rapid scale-up to these new tools.