A recently published commentary in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine about the epidemic of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) on Daru Island off the coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG), followed by an open letter by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) addressed to The Global Fund, the World Health Organization, the Western Pacific Regional Green Light Committee ... Read moreAbout the author/s Anna Maalsen Anna Maalsen is a consultant on international public health and health systems, based in Port Moresby ..read more

This week marks World Immunisation Week. Here in Australia the attention is likely to be on how we can improve our national immunisation rate and address supply shortfalls in vaccines such as for tuberculosis (TB). However, internationally we are seeing the largest and fastest global vaccine roll-out in history. Between mid-April and the beginning of ... Read moreAbout the author/s Mark Rice Mark Rice is Policy and Advocacy Manager at RESULTS Australia ..read more

The World Health Organization (WHO) released its annual Global Tuberculosis Report this week. Among the headline findings was the announcement that the number of new TB cases was higher than in previous years: there were some 9.6 million new cases of TB in 2014 (the year that this latest report covers). In 2013, an estimated ... Read moreAbout the author/s Camilla Burkot Camilla Burkot was a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre, and Editor of the Devpolicy Blog, from 2015 to 2017. She has a background in social anthropology and holds a Master of Public Health from Columbia Univers ..read more

Leadership, governance, and accountability are among the World Health Organization’s core building blocks of the health system. They are foundational to strengthening the effectiveness and functionality of the system and improving people’s access to health services. Perceived as cross-cutting components, leadership and governance provide the basis for all other components of the health system, including financing, workforce, medicines and medical technologies, information, services, and infrastructure. They also involve coordination of all levels of the health system to ensure e ..read more

Despite the availability of preventive tuberculosis (TB) medications, TB remains a critical public health challenge in Papua New Guinea. Although PNG is no longer one of the 30 countries with a high TB/HIV burden identified by WHO, a high burden of TB and multidrug-resistant TB remains. In 2011, the Department of Health introduced the National Tuberculosis Management Protocol (NTBMP), including TB infection prevention control (TB IPC) guidelines as a critical strategy to manage the high TB burden in the country. These TB IPC guidelines aim to interrupt the TB transmission cycle in healthc ..read more

As the Biden Administration in the United States prepares to host the seventh triennial replenishment of The Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, the Fund’s leadership and supporters have been making the case to Australian officials and decision makers for a substantially larger contribution from the new Albanese government. Speaking at the Development Policy Centre yesterday, the Executive Director of The Global Fund, Peter Sands, built this case around three key arguments — the Fund’s proven track record, the devastating secondary health impacts of COVID-19, and the ..read more

In Papua New Guinea, the COVID-19 outbreak has spread rapidly to all 22 provinces, affecting many people. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) reveal that, as of mid-April 2022, more than 43,600 cases have been confirmed, with 649 deaths. The true burden is likely to be much higher as many cases will have gone unreported. Like many other nations, the emergence of COVID-19 has been a major threat to public health, demanding resources be reallocated from other priority health issues, such as tuberculosis (TB). For example, the PNG government has approved K45.3 million to implement its C ..read more

While the COVID-19 pandemic is a global emergency, there is another infectious airborne disease that has at best similar or arguably worse impacts and is inextricably linked to poverty and lack of access to health care – tuberculosis (TB). TB is both preventable and curable, yet in 2019 an estimated 10 million people contracted the disease, and 1.4 million died from TB, continuing its status as the largest cause of death of any infectious disease prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2019, The Lancet Commission on Tuberculosis concluded that the prospect of a TB-free world was a realis ..read more

As the Biden Administration in the United States prepares to host the seventh triennial replenishment of The Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, the Fund’s leadership and supporters have been making the case to Australian officials and decision makers for a substantially larger contribution from the new Albanese government. Speaking at the Development Policy Centre yesterday, the Executive Director of The Global Fund, Peter Sands, built this case around three key arguments — the Fund’s proven track record, the devastating secondary health impacts of COVID-19, and the ..read more

In Papua New Guinea, the COVID-19 outbreak has spread rapidly to all 22 provinces, affecting many people. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) reveal that, as of mid-April 2022, more than 43,600 cases have been confirmed, with 649 deaths. The true burden is likely to be much higher as many cases will have gone unreported. Like many other nations, the emergence of COVID-19 has been a major threat to public health, demanding resources be reallocated from other priority health issues, such as tuberculosis (TB). For example, the PNG government has approved K45.3 million to implement its C ..read more