World News | Ukraine, Sudan conflict fuels TB surge

United Nations, May 8 (AP) — Top United Nations officials and health industry leaders are grappling with an alarming surge in tuberculosis, which now kills more people worldwide than COVID-19 or AIDS. Among the problems: high numbers of cases in conflict zones, including Ukraine and Sudan, where it is difficult to trace patients and diagnose new ones.

Tuberculosis is the world’s largest infectious disease killer today, claiming the lives of approximately 4,400 people every day, including 700 children, Dr. Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership, said at a hearing Monday at the United Nations General Assembly of world leadership in late September. A level meeting held during the annual gathering of the people.

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Before COVID-19, which is airborne like TB, “we didn’t see very dramatic cases of TB,” she said, “but after COVID-19, we saw a type of disease that we saw in the … movie TB, people spitting blood in movies, they’re very weak, et cetera.”

The economic impact of COVID and conflict, first in Ukraine and now in Sudan, is having a “huge impact” on efforts to treat TB patients and diagnose new cases, Ditiu said.

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Ukraine has the largest number of TB patients in Europe — 34,000 — and a high number of drug-resistant TB patients, she said at a news conference last week.

“It’s remarkable that the Ukrainian people have actually shown amazing resilience in doing their best to maintain TB services,” Ditiu said. “But obviously a lot of people have left the country.”

Still, she said, significant efforts have been made to track those with the disease, but everyone’s concern is whether Ukrainians will be able to access treatment.

In Sudan, 18,000 people will receive TB treatment in 2021, according to the Stop TB Partnership, a partnership managed by the United Nations Office for Project Services to achieve a world free of TB.

But with the ongoing battle and the breakdown of much of the health system, the situation for TB patients “could be like a ticking time bomb,” Ditiu said.

She noted how quickly the COVID-19 vaccine was developed in less than a year, and lamented that it took 19 years to get three or four tuberculosis vaccines into Phase 3 trials due to lack of funding.

“Unfortunately, TB is often forgotten,” she said, because “it usually affects people in low-income countries, who have a lot of vulnerability.”

U.N. officials who spoke at Monday afternoon’s hearing included Under-Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

There are also two panels: one on rapid access to TB services and the other on mobilizing funds to strengthen the TB response and advance research and innovation. It includes the chief medical officer of BioNTech, which together with Pfizer uses messenger RNA technology to make their COVID vaccine.

Ditiu said BioNTech and several other companies are investigating the use of mRNA technology to produce a tuberculosis vaccine, which she says could have a major impact on reducing and ending the disease more quickly. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)