TB Europe Coalition is one of 12 original member organisations in the European Lung Health Group (ELHG) which advocates for greater priority to be given to lung health within the European Union (EU). At the end of February ELHG launched ‘Keep Breathing’, a campaign aimed at the EU institutions.
One launch meeting, on 21st February 2024, was an online event engaging Members of the European Parliament. A second in-person event took place in Brussels on 26th February 2024 aimed at senior officials of EU agencies. This drew in representatives from 3 European Commission Directorates: Health, Environment and Reform, as well as from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Environment Agency (EVA).
Paul Sommerfeld, Chair of TBEC, was one of the speakers describing current challenges in various lung diseases. He stressed that TB remains a serious challenge in high-burden EU countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, that major challenges are faced by neighbouring countries in the EECA Region that the EU could help with, and that problems are still faced by the low-burden countries of Western Europe such as access difficulties due to non-registration of recent TB medications.
One of the most useful outcome for current TBEC activities was the contact made with the helpful and understanding officer of the EMA regarding the registration problem.
