The Bulletin of the World Health Organization for June 2002 will be a special theme issue focusing on TB. It will be released on 3^rd June 2002 at the 4^th World Congress on Tuberculosis in Washington (see details above). It will also be posted online and released by WHO on the same date. The Bulletin highlights DOTS Expansion progress in large scale settings, particularly China and India, the two highest TB burden countries. Other areas covered in the Bulletin include the global TB situation, approaches in smaller scale settings (with a focus on Bangladesh and India), TB/HIV, multi drug resistant TB, upstream research and operational research.

CIDA increases support for DOTS Expansion

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has recently mobilised over $11 million to further increase DOTS Expansion efforts in a range of high burden countries, including China, Cambodia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, DPR Korea, Afghanistan, Zambia, Mali, Gambia, and Indonesia.

Aventis to give 15 million Euro to combat TB in South Africa

Aventis has agreed to commit approximately €15 million over a five-year period to help improve TB detection and treatment rates by implementing Patient Compliance Projects and the DOTS strategy. Since in South Africa only 23% of people diagnosed with TB currently are treated using DOTS, this initiative is seeking to build an infrastructure to educate healthcare professionals and patients about the need to ensure consistency in treatments.

World Economic Forum Africa Summit
The 12th Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Africa will be held in association with the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Steering Committee in Durban, South Africa, from 5 to 7 June 2002. The theme is "NEPAD at Work: Business Engages the New Partnership for Africa's Development". Africa Economic Summit 2002 builds on the launch of the Millennium Africa Programme at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2001 in Davos and the high-level attention devoted to NEPAD at the Annual Meeting 2002 in New York. The Stop TB Partnership Secretariat has provided a directory of TB contacts for Africa to the WEF for distribution at the Africa Summit to encourage the corporate sector in Africa to join the fight to Stop TB. The directory will put industry in touch with national TB programmes and Stop TB partners. The aim is to inform the corporate sector of their interest in helping to Stop TB and encourage them to contribute to TB control in the workplace and in the communities where they have operations.

The 4^th World Congress on Tuberculosis (TB) will be held in Washington, D.C, U.S.A. on June 3-5, 2002. This meeting will evaluate the state of the global TB epidemic since the last Tuberculosis World Congress in 1992, review the status of TB research and identify research gaps.

Topics covered will include fundamental, translational and operational research. This meeting is for global TB control officials, TB researchers, health systems services researchers, policymakers and funders, as well as infectious disease and pulmonary physicians.

World Health Assembly

The World Health Assembly 2002 was held on May 12-17 and through discussions on the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, support to TB was widely expressed. A Stop TB display was mounted, providing information to interested Delegates, such as the Washington Commitment, Stop TB pins, the Global TB Control Report 2002 and the Stop TB, fight poverty kit.

World TB Day 2002 Screensaver

Human Resource Development for DOTS Expansion

Although DOTS has been widely accepted, many countries have been unable to expand coverage as rapidly as needed and have failed to achieve global targets of detecting 70% of infectious cases and curing 85% of those detected by the year 2000. Neglect of human resource development has been identified as one of the main constraints to rapid expansion of DOTS.

Human resource development has for many years been synonymous with organizing training courses. The realization that this is not enough has gradually developed, not only for TB control programmes but also for many of the other programmes and components of primary health care.

WHO, in collaboration with ATS, ALA, CDC, IUATLD and KNCV, has published this month a booklet on "Human Resource Development for TB Control - A Strategic Approach within Country Support". This document provides a strategic approach to training or better human resource development for TB control beyond the organization of training courses. It describes an outline of the essential components of a structure and system for Management of Human Resource Development for TB control, wherein the quality of the different components of the system and their implementation is as essential as having a high number of persons trained in a short period of time.

Core Team of the DOTS Expansion Working Group

The core team of the DOTS Expansion Working Group held their first teleconference on 8 May 2002. The core team is made up of the following members:

Mr Joel Spicer Dr     Jaap Broekmans           Dr Amos Kutwa
Dr Jaime Lagahid    Dr Amy Bloom               Dr Clydette Powell             Ms Lisa Véron
Dr Nils Billo     Dr Leopold Blanc        Dr Mario Raviglione             Dr Masachi Suchi

Matters discussed included:

Working Group on TB/HIV

Third Round Applications

The Global TB Drug Facility completed its third successful round of review of applications for grants of first line Tuberculosis drugs in April 2002. In May, the Stop TB Co-ordinating Board gave final approval of grants to seven countries, bringing the total number of countries approved for GDF support to 23. Of this total, orders have been placed for 16 countries and 8 countries have received their grants already. The most recent delivery, which was also the largest to date, was to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The successful delivery of over 60 tonnes of life saving TB medication is testimony to the close and effective collaboration of all the contractual partners in the GDF supply chain.

Biannual Meeting with Contractual Partners

In keeping with the promotion and maintenance of this effective co-operation the GDF held the second of its biannual meetings with its current contractual partners in Gorinchem, the Netherlands on May 29th. Current contractual partners are MEG-Svizera (Supplier), UNDP/Interagency Procurement Services Office (Procurement Agent), SGS Global Solutions BV (Pre-shipment Inspection and Quality Control Agent) and Kuhne Nagel and Mahe (Freight Forwarders).

These meetings provide a good opportunity to reflect on GDF operations during the past 6 months, troubleshoot, strategize and of course lend invaluable face-to-face contact among all partners. Moreover, these occasions are a clear sign that all players in GDF operations, contractual or otherwise, are treated as partners in a joint cause and that the Stop TB partnership actively and regularly solicits feedback from them.

Drug Management Meeting

World Economic Forum Africa Summit
Durban, South Africa, June 5-7
http://www.weforum.com/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Africa+Economic+Summit+2002

Drug Management Meeting – GDF
Washington, USA, June 6-8

IUATLD Conference of the African Region
Durban, South Africa, June 10-14

Second Meeting of the Global TB/HIV Working Group
Durban, South Africa, June 14-16

1st FEMS Congress of European Microbiologists,
Ljubljana, Slovenia, June 29 - July 3

6th International Meeting on Molecular Epidemiology and Evolutionary Genetics in Infectious
Diseases

DOTS Expansion Working Group Meeting

Montreal, Canada, October 5-6

2003