Stop TB Partnership

Urgent scale up of TB care urged at Central Asia symposium

14 April 2011 - Taskkent, Uzbekistan - Participants at a symposium organized by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan concluded that urgent action is needed to scale up the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis (TB) and drug-resistant TB in Central Asia.

"There was a common consensus among the participants that there is an urgent need to scale up treatment in order to confront the growing threat that TB and drug-resistant TB in particular represents in the region," said Dr Philipp du Cros, from MSF.

"One of the main prerequisites to enable scale up is to achieve acceptance for an ambulatory treatment model, which is the advised model from the World Health Organization, and to reserve hospitalization for very severe patients only," Dr Cros added. "It was good to see that there was a general acceptance for the ambulatory approach from all sides at the symposium."

The symposium was attended by more than 100 participants from regional Ministries of Health, international organizations and academic institutions.