The WHO South-East Asia Region, that bears a disproportionate burden of nearly half of the global TB cases and deaths, today committed to further accelerate efforts to end tuberculosis by 2030 with member countries adopting the Gandhinagar Declaration.
“Today urgent action is needed more than ever to achieve our goal of a region free of tuberculosis, that has been menacing millions of people with disease and death, poverty, and despair,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director WHO South-East Asia, in her address to a ministerial meeting ‘Sustain, Accelerate, and Innovate to end TB in the South-East Asia Region’.
The Gandhinagar Declaration was adopted at the end of the two-day meeting held to follow-up on the progress made to end TB, a flagship priority in the Region, and in the run up to the UN High Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB on 22 September in New York.
The Declaration calls for establishing high-level multisectoral commission reporting to the highest political level in each country for synergy of efforts among various stakeholders, and to monitor progress towards ending TB and other priority diseases.