Marking World Tuberculosis Day with Dr Mel Spigelman, Dr Margaret Kal from PNG and Dr Philipp du Cros

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This Thursday, 24 March is World Tuberculosis Day. An estimated 9.9 million people fell ill with TB in 2020 and 1.5 million people died from the disease.

TB continues to be a blight in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Kiribati and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Papua New Guinea bears the largest burden of disease in the Pacific, including a heavy burden of multidrug-resistant TB. In 2020 almost 30,000 cases were notified there, including 600 cases of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB.

But TB is preventable and curable. So why is it still one of the most infectious and deadly diseases on the planet?

On today’s episode we are joined by three experts who are on the front line of trying to bring an end TB.

Dr Mel Spigelman is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development – the TB Alliance – and a Member of its Board of Directors. In his time at the TB Alliance, Dr Spiegelman has been a leader in developing a regimen-based paradigm of TB drug development and leading the TB drug research field.

Dr Margaret Kal is the director of the PNG National TB Program (NTP). In this role, Dr Kal is responsible for the development of all national TB guidelines, policies, research, national program reviews and all other plans and policies for TB prevention and care in PNG. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade supports the work of the NTP.

And finally, Dr Philipp du Cros is an Infectious Diseases Specialist in TB Elimination and Implementation Science at the Burnet Institute. He has extensive experience in the management of TB/HIV programs and has worked with MDR TB programs across Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Myanmar, Uganda, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

The theme of World TB Day 2022 - ‘Invest to End TB. Save Lives.’ We talk to all of our guests on this episode about practical ways the global community can invest to end TB and the urgent need to invest resources to ramp up the fight against TB.

We hope you learn something from the conversation and join the fight to end TB @TBAlliance @CentreHealthSec