UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

High Level Meeting on Tuberculosis – Opening Segment

Remarks by Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Chairperson of the StopTB

Partnership Board

26th September 2018

Your Excellency, Secretary General of the United Nations, António

Guterres,

Honorable President of the 73rd General Assembly of the United

Nations, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés,

Distinguished Heads of State and Government,

Honourable Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,

Honourable Ministers and other authorities here present,

Leaders from the private sector and civil society,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted to be here today as the Chairperson of the Stop TB

Partnership Board – the United Nations hosted partnership for TB
that comprises nearly 2000 partners from around the world
dedicated to the fight against Tuberculosis.

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This High Level Meeting comes after the Nelson Mandela Peace
Summit that took place on Monday. The summit sought to re-ignite
world-wide peace, prosperity and justice. What is often forgotten
though, is that, Nelson Mandela was himself a survivor of TB. I am
sure, had he been at this meeting, he would have reminded all of us
that the world can never have true peace, prosperity and justice
when TB - a curable disease - continues to bring agony and death to
millions of people the world over, every year. However, the fact that
we are gathered here at the UN General Assembly to discuss the
world’s leading infectious-disease killer – a moment long overdue I
might add – is a historic moment for every person who has been
afflicted by tuberculosis past and present. This high level meeting
therefore has a historic mission which we should not waste.

Excellencies, your mere presence demonstrates that the world may

finally have accepted that TB deserves the highest level of political
attention. And those of us in the Stop TB Partnership who have
yearning for ages for TB to get this type of attention, are indeed very
happy.

Now that we’re here, we have an important choice to make: Will we

allow TB to continue to be a disease of silence, hidden in the
shadows, neglected by a lack of political priority and funding when
we return to our capitals? Or will we chart a new path, ensuring that
the Political Declaration on the Fight to End TB becomes the basis
for an unprecedented scale up in our response to TB in each of our
countries?

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Two years ago, on this very floor, during the discussion on
antimicrobial resistance, I highlighted the continued absence of TB
in high-level political discussions – even though resistance of
antibiotics to tuberculosis contributes one third of antimicrobial
resistance. I called on the gathered delegates to unite behind the
proposal for a UN High-Level Meeting on TB. Many put their full
support behind this call including my colleagues in the Board of the
Stop TB Partnership Board, as well as fellow Ministers of Health.

But if ending TB was simply a matter for Ministers of Health to

address the General Assembly, we would have ended the disease a
long time ago. However, the end of TB in our lifetime requires the
highest political priority, starting with Heads of State and
Government. Responding to TB, Excellencies, must be part of your
core responsibilities as national and global leaders. The global
community, especially those that are suffering from this highly
infectious disease expects no less!

Because, TB which is fundamentally an issue of social justice and

inequality, exposes and exacerbates multiple social and economic
fault lines. There is no other explanation for why a disease that has
been curable for decades has been allowed to persist and become
one of the world’s leading causes of death.

Like many other diseases for which a cure has long been available
to those fortunate enough to have access to treatment, TB is a
litmus test of our commitment to fighting poverty. Regrettably, the
latest data released just a few days ago by the World Health

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Organisation in its annual Global TB Report show that we are failing
that test:
• In 2017 10 million people developed TB worldwide.
• We’re not finding enough people with TB and miss nearly 40% of
new patients each year and rates of treatment success are still
too low: just 55% globally.
• Drug-resistant TB has become a huge health security problem,
and the major cause of deaths related to antimicrobial resistance.
Globally we diagnose and put on treatment barely 25% of those
with drug resistant TB.
• New TB infections and TB-related deaths are not falling fast
enough – not even close in fact - to reach the first of our End TB
targets in 2020.

Today we must commit – to ourselves, to each other, to people

affected by TB, and to the world – that we will mobilize every
available resource, every ounce of energy, and every dollar
necessary. As history has taught us, bold and audacious steps have
always offered the greatest victories against dangers that the world
faced before: wars, global diseases, natural disasters to mention but
a few. And TB requires no less!

Excellencies and honourable delegates, our theme today is “United

to end tuberculosis: an urgent global response to a global epidemic”,
that sums up why we are here. The Political Declaration that we
have before us today has 5 priorities which we have called the five
asks. They range from mobilising resources to find and successfully
treat all those infected with TB to mobilising resources for research
and development to find new diagnostics and medicines, and more
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than anything else a vaccine which will constitute a complete game
changer.
In conclusion, in addition to the five asks agreed upon after
consultation I wish to add my own two personal asks: first, I wish
that all heads of state can speak spontaneously about TB without it
appearing in their prepared speeches in Parliament, Cabinet,
community meetings, public engagements, business fora, wherever
they appear. My second ask is that any head of state who is asked
by their Minister of Finance whether end TB is affordable or not
must respond with an important question: can we afford not to!

Your Excellency, Secretary-General Guterras, I thank you for your

leadership that gave the response to TB such a prominent global
platform in the form of this HLM.

Throughout history each generation has had its calling in one form
or another and I believe that this generation is being called upon to
be that generation which will bring an end to this century old
disease. The question is: are we going to answer an emphatic yes to
this calling?

Now is the time for all us to be United to End TB!

I thank You.