January 9, 2003

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "STATUS OF TB PROGRAM (DOTS STRATEGY) IMPLEMENTATION IN EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA"

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic and Project HOPE will host an international conference "Status of TB Program (DOTS Strategy) Implementation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia" at the Pinara Hotel in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic on January 14-16, 2003. Delegations from the Ministries of Health, leading TB Institutions, and international organizations from thirteen countries will participate in the conference.

The purpose of the conference is to share the lessons learned about combating tuberculosis. In addition, the conference will present findings of the USAID-supported TB program evaluation team that visited Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan in spring and summer, 2002. During the conference, the participants will discuss how to better coordinate TB control efforts in Eastern Europe and Central Asian Republics, and how to combat such emerging TB issues as multi-drug resistant TB, and TB and HIV co-infection.

Tuberculosis poses a serious global threat. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated one third of the world's population (2 billion people) is already infected with tuberculosis. Each year approximately 8.4 million new TB cases are produced from this reservoir of infection and 2 million people die of the disease worldwide.

To address the global epidemics of tuberculosis, the World Health Organization introduced the DOTS strategy in the early '90s. It is remarkably effective as DOTS saves lives, stops the chain of transmission, and prevents the emergence of drug resistant TB. In Kazakhstan alone, more than 13,000 lives were saved due to DOTS implementation during the period of 1998 -2001. In China, 46% of TB deaths were prevented in the provinces implementing DOTS. This translated into 30,000 lives saved each year. As of 2000, 148 countries out of 210 had adopted the WHO DOTS strategy for TB control. It means that by the end of year of 2000, over 55% of the world's population lived in parts of countries providing DOTS.

In addition, the World Health Organization, USAID, the World Bank and Soros Foundation initiated the Global Partnership to Stop TB in 1998. The Partnership is hosted by WHO Headquarters in Geneva and comprises more than 200 organizations worldwide working together to eventually eliminate TB as a global public health concern. Conference participants will discuss how to effectively coordinate their joint efforts and apply evidence-based and cost-effective strategies for TB control. The conference will assist Eastern European and Central Asian country specialists to learn more about global experience with disease prevention and control; and how to improve efforts in their own institutions.