-The Hindu The disease cannot be eliminated without universal access to affordable, quality diagnostics and drugs After decades spent battling the scourge of Tuberculosis (TB) in developing countries, 2018 might be the year that it is finally accorded the gravitas it deserves. On September 26, the UN General Assembly will, for the first time, address TB in a High-Level Meeting and likely release a Political Declaration, endorsed by all member nations, to...

-Hindustan Times It will give the failing discipline the priority, energy and momentum it requires To eliminate Tuberculosis by 2025, a decision to integrate the two vertically implemented programmes — Tuberculosis with HIV/AIDS — was taken in March, and an expert committee was constituted to provide the operational strategies for it. The argument for this integration is unquestionable. When HIV/AIDS claimed 30 million lives in the 1990s, it was declared a global...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Countries negotiating a global declaration on Tuberculosis are under pressure to give up their rights to use existing provisions in world trade laws to provide affordable second-line and new anti-TB drugs to their populations, an international humanitarian agency said on Friday. Medecins Sans Frontieres said the US was "exerting extreme pressure" on other negotiators by refusing to sign the declaration if it retained text that "recognises the importance...

-PTI NEW DELHI: From running street clinics to giving free-of-cost treatment to poor and homeless, many doctors in old Delhi's Chandni Chowk area are going beyond their line of duty to serve people. A team of three doctors set up a street clinic near the Baptist Church every morning to tend to the poor before going to their work. "I come here for two hours in the morning, tend to those with wounds...

-PTI NEW DELHI: India ranks 145th among 195 countries in terms of quality and accessibility of healthcare, behind its neighbours like China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, according to a Lancet study. The Global Burden of Disease study, however, mentioned that India has seen improvements in healthcare access and quality since 1990. In 2016, India's healthcare access and quality scored at 41.2 (up from 24.7 in 1990). "Although India's improvements on the (healthcare access...