Ottawa must continue to step up in fight against TB

To mitigate against the devastating impacts COVID-19 is having on people affected by tuberculosis, this World TB Day, Canada must maintain its investment in TB REACH. Like COVID-19, TB is an airborne respiratory disease. Before the pandemic, it was the world’s leading infectious-disease killer, killing millions of people each and every year. In 2019 alone, about 10 million people fell sick with the disease and an estimated 1.4 million died. This is despite TB being both preventable and curable. Most often, the people affected by TB live in marginalized and underserved communities. Here in Canada, the incidence of TB in Inuit communities is more than 290 times higher than it is in the non-Indigenous Canadian-born population. The World Health Organization calls TB a “disease of poverty.” The COVID-19 pandemic is proving to be devastating for people affected by TB. Lockdowns have meant people cannot travel to access health services and medicines; livelihoods have been impacted leaving many hungry and with compromised immune systems; people affected by lung diseases like TB are at an increased risk of severe disease from COVID; and resources that would normally be used to fight the TB epidemic have been diverted to respond to the pandemic. As a result, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria estimated that, in 2020 alone, an additional half a million people will have died from TB. Canada has been a global leader in the fight to end TB. For example, since its creation in 2002, we have been a strong supporter of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, contributing $930.4-million over three years in 2019. Canada is also one of only five countries to contribute at least 75 per cent of the global fair share target for investment in TB research and development. Additionally, TB REACH, which works to find people with TB in hard-to-reach communities so they can get the care they need, was founded in 2010, thanks to financial support and leadership from the Government of Canada. Since its establishment, grantees have screened more than 40 million people for TB, resulting in over 2.6 million people being diagnosed and put on treatment. Its work has saved approximately 1.3 million lives to date, as well as helped to stop TB from spreading within high risk communities. Canada must maintains its historical level of investment in TB REACH. Its funding sunsets at the end of this month, which is why Canada’s TB community is calling on the International Development Minister Karina Gould to at least maintain, if not increase, Canada’s investment in this critical, life-saving initiative. We know that before the pandemic, more than three million people were missed by health systems each year and did not get the care they needed. Severe disruptions during the pandemic mean millions more people will be missed, which will likely lead to a dramatic increase in TB deaths. As a supporter of community-led initiatives that have the ability to rapidly select and fund needs-based and innovative TB programs, it’s well placed to fill gaps in service provision during the pandemic. To not maintain our investment in TB in the middle of the pandemic would have devastating consequences and would be a cruel retrenchment of leadership in the fight to end TB by Canada. Robyn Waite is the policy and advocacy manager at Results Canada. The Hill Times