"To end TB, there is a need to reach out to and engage with communities directly for case detection, treatment completion and addressing out-of-pocket expenditures.
"Forging partnerships with civil society groups and between public and private care providers will likewise ensure that present gaps are closed and that a society-wide movement to end TB develops," Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region, said.
Singh also stressed on addressing the social determinants of tuberculosis as it still remains a disease of the poor and the marginalized, with a disproportionate number of cases found among people living with HIV, migrants, refugees and prisoners.
"Addressing poverty and other determinants will have a dramatic effect on the disease's burden. Policies in this regard could include increasing access to safe housing and providing viable social security among other options.
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"TB isn't only a health problem. Therefore, its solutions must also encompass the full range of multi-sectoral dimensions and multi-stakeholder engagement. It is one of those diseases that require health in all policies, coupled with strengthening the full spectrum of human rights that guarantee a TB patient the right to the best treatment possible," she said.
"Also, political commitment at the highest level, must be reinforced. The mission-like zeal with which polio and HIV/AIDS have been fought must be reproduced in the battle against TB and must lead to organisational and programming shifts," she said.