09/06/2026
✊ Een sterke boodschap van Stop TB Partnership die we bij Respiratoire Gezondheid voluit onderschrijven.
🌍🫁 Tuberculose is nog steeds de dodelijkste infectieziekte ter wereld. Daarom verdient deze ziekte een prominente plaats in het debat over pandemische paraatheid.
➡️ Investeren in tuberculosepreventie, -zorg, -onderzoek en -opsporing betekent investeren in sterkere gezondheidszorgsystemen én in een betere voorbereiding op toekomstige gezondheidscrisissen.
📢 Er is geen geloofwaardige pandemische paraatheid zonder aandacht voor tuberculose. Daarom blijven we pleiten voor duurzame politieke en financiële engagementen om tuberculose definitief te beëindigen.
We are in New York this week for the civil society hearings on the 2026 UN Political Declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response.
We are here with one clear and urgent message:
Ending TB is pandemic preparedness.
Tuberculosis is often misunderstood as a disease of the past. In reality, it remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease today, claiming more than 1.25 million lives every year. It spreads through the air, is in almost all countries, crosses borders without restriction, and disproportionately affects the poor and vulnerable communities.
In other words—TB behaves like a pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic made this painfully clear. It showed that when a respiratory crisis emerges, countries that had invested in TB laboratories, surveillance systems, community networks, diagnostics, and infection prevention were not starting from zero—they were already building the foundations of response.
For TB communities, this was not new knowledge. It was confirmation of what we have long known: TB systems are pandemic response systems.
Yet despite this, TB remains chronically underfunded, underprioritized, and too often left at the margins of global health security discussions.
As civil society, we are calling for a 2026 Political Declaration that matches reality and ambition. One that:
• recognizes TB as a core pillar of global health security and pandemic preparedness
• invests in integrated respiratory disease surveillance and response systems
• ensures equitable access to TB diagnostics, treatment, preventive tools, and future vaccines
• fully finances TB prevention, care, and research and development
• places affected communities, TB survivors, and civil society at the centre of preparedness and response
Here is the link to the Key Asks:https://www.stoptb.org/sites/default/files/documents/TB%20Key%20Asks_UNHLM-PPPR.pdf
There is no credible pandemic preparedness without TB preparedness.
And TB cannot be ended without strong, sustained political and financial commitment.
Ending TB is pandemic preparedness.
