Speeches and Opinions

Mar 21, 2011

SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT ON WORLD TUBERCULOSIS DAY

Category: Speeches and Opinions

TEHAN (Wannon) (Main Committee 8.07 pm)—I rise to talk on this motion, in particular points 1 and 3, which recognise that 24 March is World Tuberculosis Day—an observance of a disease that still claims the lives of 1.7 million people every year. It also acknowledges that the widespread adoption of the new Xpert diagnostic tool, which cuts the time for diagnosis from several weeks to two hours, would lead to significant improvements in the detection and the treatment of tuberculosis.

This year marks the second year of a global two-year campaign by the World Health Organisation called ‘On the move against tuberculosis’. The goal of this campaign is to inspire innovation in tuberculosis research and care. Today I would like to acknowledge the work and research that has been done on this important topic. Tuberculosis is an airborne infectious disease that is preventable and curable. The World Health Organisation is working to dramatically reduce the burden of tuberculosis and halve tuberculosis deaths and prevalence by 2015. The World Health Organisation is championing the ambitious new objective and targets of the Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis 2011-15, which involves identifying all the research gaps that need to be filled to bring rapid tuberculosis tests, faster treatment regimes and a fully effective vaccine to market. In addition to this, the global plan shows public health programs how to drive universal access to TB care, including how to modernise diagnostic laboratories and adapt revolutionary TB tests that have recently become available.

TB is a disease of poverty affecting mostly young adults in their most productive years. The vast majority of TB deaths are in the developing world and it is among the three greatest causes of death among women age 15 to 44. More than two billion people around the globe, one-third of the world’s total population, are infected with TB bacilli, the microbes that cause TB. One in every 10 of those people will be become sick with active TB in his or her lifetime. People living with HIV are at much greater risk. While Australia has one of the lowest rates of tuberculosis in the world, we are not immune and the disease remains a public health problem in our overseas born and Indigenous communities.

In 2008, 1,228 TB notifications were received by both national notifiable diseases surveillance system corresponding to a rate of 5.7 notifications per 100,000 population. In 2007 there were 1,174 notifications or 5.6 per 100,000 population. The notification rate of TB was higher than the national average in the Northern Territory and New South Wales and also in my state of Victoria where the NNDSS reported 7.1 per 100,000 population.

As with many infectious diseases, time is of the essence with regard to treating tuberculosis. Whilst TB is an ancient disease, today it is curable and globally we should be working towards zero deaths from TB in the 21st century.

Two major goals that are set regarding the global fight against tuberculosis are the UN Millennium Development Goals and those of the Stop TB Partnership. The UN Millennium Development Goals aim to have halted and begun reverse incidence by 2015 in comparison with 1990. The Stop TB Partnership aims to have halved the deaths by 2015 in comparison with 1990.

It is heartening to hear that the Stop TB Department of WHO confirm they are currently on target globally to achieve both the goals set under the UN Millennium Development Goals and those set by the Stop TB Partnership. I wish to acknowledge World Tuberculosis Day on 24 March and express my thoughts and sympathy for those who have lost family or loved ones to tuberculosis.

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