Remarks by H.E. Mr. Abdulla Shahid, President of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly
24 September 2021
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for the opportunity to join you today.
My appreciation to the Government of the Russian Federation and the World Health Organization for organizing today’s discussion.
In 2018, world leaders adopted a Political Declaration reaffirming their commitment to ending tuberculosis by 2030. The unprecedented political will to fight the preventable disease would translate into national and collective actions, investments and innovations.
Together, the goal was to ensure that 40 million people had access to diagnosis and treatment by 2022.
Colleagues, 18 months ago, the COVID-19 pandemic upended this commitment.
None of the targets are now on track to be met on time.
In fact, new data collated by the World Health Organization shows that COVID-19 disruptions could lead to 1.4 million additional people missing out on access to tuberculosis care in 2020 alone.
While Tuberculosis was briefly superseded by COVID-19, it’s still the top infectious-disease killer globally, and particularly so in HIV/AIDS patients.
Identifying patients early is key to interrupting transmission, especially due to the rise in multi-drug resistant TB strains.
Added to this, fast, cheap and accurate prognostic and diagnostic molecular tools are urgently needed.
Despite these challenges, we have to bear in mind that TB is treatable and TB-related deaths are preventable in most patients.
It is clear that we must ramp up the TB response in tandem with efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
Efforts to eradicate TB by 2030 should be mainstreamed through appropriate national covid response strategies that are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
And we need to double funding to achieve universal access to TB prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and research.
By investing now, we can save lives, ease suffering and address the financial burden on our economies and our communities. This is particularly true for LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDS, who continue to carry an undue burden.
Ladies and gentlemen, the urgency for global cooperation, solidarity and action to fight TB has never been greater.
With strong advocacy and in a spirit of shared accountability, we can build resilient health systems and ensure sustainable community-based health services.
Under a Presidency of Hope, I look forward to working with the Secretary General, the World Health Organization, Member States and civil society to initiate preparations for the 2023 UN High-Level Meeting on TB.
Together, we can help save millions of lives and demonstrate the success of one of the SDG indicators.
The opportunity to eliminate this preventable disease, once and for all, should not be missed: a TB-free world by 2030.
Thank you.
Efforts to eradicate TB by 2030 should be mainstreamed through appropriate national covid response strategies that are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
