Traditionally
TB Europe Coalition took an active part in the annual Union World Conference on
Lung Health which was held in Paris (France), November 15-18, 2023.
TBEC Board members and Secretariat presented the latest developments and shared best practices in advocacy on key issues in the fight against TB.
During the four active days of the conference, our Board members - Paul Sommerfeld, Jonathan Stillo, Olya Klymenko, Oxana Rucsineanu, Parvana Valieva, Daniel Kashnitsky, and Sharonann Lynch - served as moderators and speakers in various sessions. Additionally, Secretariat staff represented by Yuliia Kalancha, Vlada Rabinova, and Lesya Tonkonog, contributed to the discussions.
On November 15, during the "Expert Meeting" session, the TBEC Executive Director as an invited expert shared the Coalition's experience in implementing a Multisectoral Accountability Framework in the EECA region. She gave extensive answers to numerous questions from the community and civil society organisations’ representatives, providing insights into strengthening multisectoral collaboration and organising the launch and implementation of the Multisectoral Accountability Framework in their respective countries.
Yuliia Kalancha also discussed the Multisectoral Accountability Framework in the context of fulfilling the commitments and achieving the goals of the UN Political Declaration on TB during the session titled ‘Reflecting and learning from community, academic and health professional engagement with the UN High Level Meeting on the Fight Against Tuberculosis for actionable next steps’ held on November 16. Meanwhile, Olya Klymenko, Vice-Chair of the TBEC Board (TBpeopleUkraine), shared the experience of Ukraine's community and civil society in preparing for the UN HLM on TB.
Questions related to Multisectoral Accountability Framework to end TB in the EECA region, from the perspective of civil society and communities, were addressed by the TBEC Executive Director on the Main Conference platform during the "Achieving Results through Community Interventions" session on November 17.
Additionally, on the same day, the Community Connect platform hosted a session organized by the TBEC to strengthen communities and CSOs in TB response through technical support and systematic data collection.
The session was chaired by the TBEC programme managers Vlada Rabinova and Lesya Tonkonog. During the event, TBEC Board Member Parvana Valieva (Saglamliga Khidmat" Public Union) spoke about transitioning from obstacles to resolutions in examining the role of technical support in TB response in Azerbaijan. Ivan Varentsov (EECA Regional Platform) shared insights with participants on regional collaboration and knowledge sharing in the context of creating demand for technical assistance related to the Global Fund in the EECA region. Giorgi Kuchukhidze from the WHO European Regional Office provided an overview of the 4 new WHO Europe indicators on community engagement, included in the new TB Action Plan for the WHO European Region for 2023–2030. Continuing on this topic, our colleague Lesya Tonkonog provided an overview of the Algorithm developed for data collection for the four WHO Europe indicators to measure community and CSO engagement in the National TB response. Vice-Chair of the TBEC Board, Olya Klimenko (TBpeopleUkraine), shared insights on the lessons learned from short-term and long-term technical assistance in empowering the TB Community in Ukraine.
During the session focused on community perspectives on TB research, Jonathan Stillo, Co-Chair of the TB Europe Coalition Board, gave a presentation titled "Addressing the needs of people with extensively drug-resistant TB through pre-approval access to drugs and research". The speaker highlighted that in the hight burden countries, there are people infected with TB that is resistant to drugs such as bedaquiline, linezolid and fluoroquinolones which form the backbone of the best approaches to treating DR-TB today. For people with XDR-TB (under the new WHO definition), there are very few treatment options exist. The drugs that are used such as carbapenems, injectables, and ethionamide are poorly tolerated and not very effective.
TB Europe Coalition is grateful to everyone who could join our sessions, whether offline or online, at the UNION conference. We appreciate your participation in the sessions where we shared our experiences to build the advocacy capacity of civil society and communities in the fight against TB.
