
he 21st Stop TB Partnership Coordinating Board retreat and meeting officially started in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sunday, January 29th with the official opening ceremony held yesterday January 30th. Included are some exciting news from the meeting courtesy of Mark Harrington, Executive Director of the Treatment Action Group (TAG).
During last week, the Stop TB Partnership Working Group on New Drugs had a successful annual meeting in Lille, France, in conjunction with the 42nd Union World Conference. There were quite a few updates to the Global TB Drugs Pipeline showing progress toward the goal of better treatment for TB in all patient populations. Additional links to TB R&D news are included.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports for the first time that the number of people falling ill with tuberculosis (TB) each year is declining. New data, published today in the WHO 2011 Global Tuberculosis Control Report, also show that the number of people dying from the disease fell to its lowest level in a decade.
We invite you to join us for the Stop TB Partnership Working Group on New Drugs’ Annual Meeting 2011 at the Grand Palais in Lille, France, on October 26. Also, we are sponsoring a dinner on October 25 at Le Barbue d’Anvers in Lille to allow our Sub-groups (Biology/Targets, Candidates, Critical Knowledge and Tools, and Clinical Trial Capacity) to meet and plan for activities for 2012. Please make plans to attend both events.
The Stop TB Partnership has provided information and references to help partners to prepare a successful proposal to The Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The call for Round 11 applications was released on August 15. Go to http://www.stoptb.org/global/tbfriends/ to get more information.
On June 6, 2011, the Stop TB Partnership launched the initiative Time to Act–Save a Million Lives by 2015 at the UN Headquarters at a reception hosted by Ray Chambers, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Malaria and UN MDG Advocate. If you would like to respond to this call to action, visit www.action.org.