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Remarks by HHS Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs Loyce Pace at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on the Fight Against Tuberculosis
On Friday, September 22, 2023, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs (OGA) Loyce Pace joined leaders from across the world for the United Nations General Assembly for the High-Level Meeting on the Fight Against Tuberculosis.
Below are the Assistant Secretary’s remarks, as prepared for delivery.
I would like to acknowledge Deputy-Secretary-General Mohammed and President (of the General Assembly) Francis for holding this critically important High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis.
I would like to also extend my deepest gratitude to the Ambassadors of Poland and Uzbekistan for your leadership on this High-Level Meeting and the Political Declaration we will adopt today.
Of course, this meeting comes at a critical time. While the world continues to take steps towards universal health coverage, and works to improve our pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, the age-old scourge of tuberculosis takes more than 1.6 million lives each year. It’s been far too long that we’ve endured its consequences.
TB remains a disease linked to poverty, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable in our society. As we have heard today, TB is personal. Contracting TB can easily undermine the economic and social wellbeing of an individual and their family. Children, people living with HIV, and health workers often lack support for the TB prevention and treatment they need, and can be subject to stigma and isolation at a time when they need community the most. Let’s not only applaud after these stories, but carry them in our hearts as we take action.
We must ensure that all people affected by TB are reached with equitable, inclusive, gender-responsive, rights-based, and human-centered prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care. This includes access to the benefits of research and innovation.
We must prioritize TB in national health programming – including a coordinated effort to prevent and manage HIV and TB co-infection, along with other co-morbidities and risk factors. We need a sustained commitment to TB screening and surveillance, as well as an increase in laboratory capacity to find and diagnose persons with tuberculosis to stop community spread. We must also advance our research on TB prevention, detection, treatment initiation, continuity and outcomes to end TB.
To achieve all of this, we must work together – governments, civil society, international organizations, philanthropy, and the private sector. The people and communities affected by TB must be welcomed as partners, not shunned or excluded from discussions or solutions.
The United States government has worked with partners for over two decades to end TB, through the surveillance, program, and research efforts of our agencies. We will continue these collaborations and contributions, including for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. We also encourage high burden countries to commit financial and human resources to accelerate an urgent response against this disease. And there must be accountable leadership in which progress against our collective goals is reviewed on a routine basis.
In concluding, the United States remains committed to our global goal to eliminate TB by the year 2030. We urge all partners to come together with a common mission and commitment to ensure tuberculosis programs have the resources and political support they need to prevent, treat, and cure this disease.
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