End TB Dialogues Summit | World TB Day


(click here to register) In lead up to 2024 World TB Day, be welcome to join us in our annual End TB Dialogues Summit on 19th March, 2pm IST. The theme is: “Treatment is prevention: Find all TB → treat all TB → prevent all TB → end TB."

Finding all TB, treating all TB and preventing all TB in Bangladesh: Are we on track?



(click here to register) Join us on 19th March, Tuesday, at 10:30am Bangladesh time in a special episode of End TB Dialogues Summit (in lead up to 2024 World TB Day) featuring a range of #EndTB experts from Bangladesh. The theme is: "Find all TB → treat all TB → prevent all TB → end TB".

It is not natural disasters but manmade barriers that block access to TB care

It is not natural disasters (like hurricanes or storms) which block access to TB care services most times, but manmade barriers that fuel injustices, inequities, greed, and risk factors that put people at risk of TB disease and death.

[podcast] Science has gifted us tools to find, treat and prevent TB but are we using them?

This podcast features Professor (Dr) Rajendra Prasad, who was conferred upon the coveted Dr BC Roy National Award by the President of India; and has been the President of all important respiratory medicine professional associations such as National College of Chest Physicians, Indian Chest Society, or Indian College of Allergy, Asthma and Applied Immunology. Earlier he has been the Director of Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute in Delhi and UP Rural Institute of Medical Sciences in Safai; former Head of the Respiratory Medicine Department of prestigious King George's Medical University (KGMU); and leads National TB Task Force for TB Elimination. He is also part of the leadership of TB Association of India, and continues to play a seminal role in shaping India's response to end TB. He spoke with CNS on sidelines of 78th National Conference of Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases (NATCON) in Thrissur, Kerala, India.

May you be the woman you want to be in a man's world

[हिन्दी] "A judge's son is a lawyer, and this lawyer's father is an inspector. Then who is the judge?" 

When this question was asked in a training workshop, many participants floundered on the answer. Deep-rooted gender biases and harmful gender stereotypes and narratives, often affect the gendered way we think. Perhaps that is why it is not so obvious to many that a woman can also be a judge as well as a mother!

[video] End TB-related stigma in healthcare settings

We cannot leave the older people behind if we are to end TB

One in four persons globally who had developed active TB disease in 2022 was over 55 years of age as per the latest WHO Global TB Report 2023 - around 2.7 million people. But over a million of these older people were missed by TB services (or not notified to the national TB programmes if they ever received any kind of care or not).

[podcast] With determination and persistence we can transform #EndTB dreams into reality

This podcast features Dr Kuldeep Singh Sachdeva who is speaking in CNS INSPIRE series, which features those who have done commendable work in helping shape responses to improve public health and gender equity. Dr Sachdeva has earlier led India's TB and AIDS programmes, has been the former Southeast Asia Regional Director of International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), and currently leads Molbio Diagnostics as President - Chief Medical Officer. He is in conversation with CNS founder Executive Director and Managing Editor Shobha Shukla, who is a noted feminist and development justice leader.

[video] Persistence and determination play vital role in transforming our #EndTB dreams into reality | CNS Inspire series

[video] To end TB we must address TB risk factors, says Dr Sajeevan KM

[video] Compassion and use of best of tools to test, treat and prevent TB is vital

[video] Do not leave the children behind: Find all TB, treat all TB and stop the spread

Treatment is prevention: Stop the spread of infection by finding all and treating all TB

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” 

These golden words of Michelangelo perhaps sum up the fundamental gap in the fight to end TB worldwide.

[podcast] Why cannot all people in need have access to best of TB tests and treatments?

In this podcast, Manitosh Ghildiyal, TB and HIV human rights activist, shares his personal lived experience with HIV as well as TB - and how he is advocating for people-centred responses to end TB and end AIDS. Why cannot all people-in-need get better tests and new shorter and more effective treatments for TB? he asks.

5000 vertical HIV transmissions in India in 2021

States need tailored interventions to eliminate vertical transmission
published in aidsmap on 19 February 2024
published in aidsmap on 19 February 2024


149 experts call to find all TB to stop TB

One hundred and forty nine delegates of 78th National Conference of Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases ( NATCON) have endorsed a global call to find all TB to stop TB, which has 1 key ask: Stop missing TB cases, by taking 2 actions:
  1. Replace smear microscopy 100% with WHO recommended molecular tests as soon as possible, along with a paradigm shift from a lab-centric to a fundamentally people-centric model to find TB, leaving no one behind
  2. Find the missing millions! Screen everyone (and not just those with TB symptoms) in high burden settings with WHO recommended screening tools, and confirm those with presumptive TB using molecular tests.

[video] Stop TB Partnership head Dr Lucica Ditiu's message at World Social Forum 2024

[video] Global North vs Global South: End health inequity to end TB and deliver on health for all

[podcast] Ending inequity is imperative to end TB and deliver on #HealthForAll

This podcast features Sumit Mitra, a thought leader on reaching the unreached with best of evidence-based diagnostics and health services, and President of Molbio Diagnostics (makers of Truenat). He is speaking at the World Social Forum (WSF 2024) in Kathmandu, Nepal, in a session entitled "Ending inequity is imperative if we are to end TB and deliver on health for all." This WSF 2024 session is being held in Ministry of Health and Population, Nepal.

It is time to hold governments to account for ending tobacco

Currently the intergovernmental talks on the legally binding global tobacco treaty are taking place in Panama. This meeting, formally called the tenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), has delegates from 183 countries representing more than 90% of the world’s population, to review progress in the implementation of the global tobacco treaty, and take the next steps to help achieve the right of all people to lead healthy lives.

Growing call to make Big Tobacco pay for health and environment harms

Would you not be surprised to learn that an industry whose products kill over 8 million people every year (even when used as the manufacturer intended), and cause an array of health and environment disasters of epidemic proportion, has not been held to account fully? Yes we are referring to the Big Tobacco. Well, perhaps a very long wait could be over as governments of over 180 countries are meeting in Panama for advancing progress on global tobacco treaty - and it is likely that such a decision to make Big Tobacco Pay - may come forth, finally.

Thrissur journalists call to #FindAllTB to stop TB

Why are shorter, safer and more effective treatments for drug-resistant TB not reaching everyone in need?

Is it not a paradox that a preventable, diagnosable, treatable, and curable bacterial infection disease is still 1.30 million people every year. Yes we are talking of TB. Today we have all the solutions to #EndTB - point-of-care molecular tests to diagnose drug sensitive and drug-resistant TB upfront within an hour or so, and begin patient-friendly shorter treatment regimens ("same day test and treat") to get rid of this dreaded disease. And yet in 2022, an estimated 10.6 million people developed TB globally, out of which 410,000 cases were of drug-resistant TB. Moreover only less than half of those with drug-resistant TB (43%) were able to access treatment.

Journey of a TB survivor from pain to strength

⭐ Watch the interview on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram

Immortal words of Leonard Cohen, “there is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in,” best sum up the transformative journey from pain to strength of Binika Shrestha, a native of Hetauda in Nepal. Binika shared the travails of the long path she trod- from being diagnosed with TB, going through the TB treatment, fighting the side effects of medicines as well as the haunting and daunting stigma, to eventually getting cured, and then, a few years later becoming a district TB officer herself.

[podcast] When we can reach the moon then why cannot we reach the unreached people in the communities with health services?


This podcast features Dr Rennis Davis Kizhakkepeedika, President of Association of Pulmonologists Thrissur; Professor and Head, Pulmonary Medicine Dept and Vice Principal, Amala Institute of Medical Sciences; and part of lead organising committee of 78th National Conference of TB and Chest Diseases (NATCON, 2-4 February 2024 in Thrissur). Dr Rennis was on the panel for #EndTB Dialogues. For more information on NATCON in Thrissur (2-4 February 2024) please visit: www.natcon2023thrissur.com

Are we prepared to combat online gender-based violence?

[watch the recording on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram (part 1, 2), or listen to podcast] Gender-based violence is among the most prevalent human rights violations globally. Urgency is palpable as governments worldwide have less than 7 years to end all forms of gender-based violence and deliver on the promise of gender equality for all by 2030. But instead of declining, gender-based violence has become even more sinister and complex because technology-based and technology-facilitated online gender-based violence is also on an alarming rise.