Letter to the Minister of International Development
Hon. Karina Gould, Minister of International Development
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada
K1A 0A6
Feb. 24, 2021
Dear Minister Gould,
We are reaching out to you today as the steering committee of Stop TB Canada, a network of Canadians committed to ending tuberculosis (TB) at home and abroad. We wish to draw your attention to the urgent need to scale up efforts in the fight to end TB, which is critical to promoting global solidarity during the pandemic, as well as important for Canada’s Indigenous
and Immigrant communities.
Like COVID-19, TB is an airborne disease. Before the pandemic, it was the world’s leading infectious disease killer. In 2019 alone, about 10 million people fell sick with the disease and an estimated 1.4 million died. This is despite TB being both preventable and curable.
The COVID-19 pandemic is proving to be devastating for people affected by TB around the world. Lockdowns have meant people cannot travel to access health services, and receive medicines; livelihoods have been impacted leaving many hungry and suffering related immune-compromise; people affected by lung diseases are at an increased risk of severe disease from COVID; and resources that would normally be used to fight the TB epidemic have been diverted to respond to the pandemic. As a result, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria estimates that in 2020 alone an additional half a million people will have died from TB.
Canada can be proud of its long-standing and active leadership in the global fight against TB. Notable contributions include:
Pledging CAD$ 930.4 Million over three years (2020 - 2022) in 2019 to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria;
Being a founding member of the Stop TB Partnership’s TB REACH initiative, a unique funding mechanism supporting local initiatives, and contributing CAD$ 205 million in
funding since the initiative launched in 2010;Contributing USD$ 19 million in funding towards TB research and development (R&D) in 2019, making Canada one of only five countries that has contributed at least 75% of the global fair-share target.
However, because the current need is greater than ever and there is an opportunity to leverage COVID-19 infrastructure and investments to improve the TB response, we are writing to ask for your support in calling on Canada to maintain, if not enhance, its position of leadership in the global fight to end TB.
Most immediately, Canada must maintain historical levels of investment in TB REACH, which sunset this March. With Canada’s support, TB REACH grantees have screened more than 40 million people for TB, resulting in over 2.6 million people being diagnosed and put on treatment. Their work has saved approximately 1.3 million lives to date, and helped to stop TB from spreading within the most underserved communities. Canada reducing funding when USAID has started co-funding would be a lost opportunity with devastating impacts. Before the pandemic, more than 3 million people globally were missed by health systems and did not get the TB care they needed. Severe disruptions from COVID-19 are contributing to many more millions of people being missed, which will lead to a dramatic increase in TB deaths. TB REACH is well placed to fill gaps in service provision during the pandemic and if Canada were to decrease its funding, already vulnerable populations (including the women and girls engaged in Wave 7 of programming) would be left behind.
In the longer term, to enhance its position of leadership in the TB response, Canada should step-up its investment in TB R&D and medical product development such as new diagnostics and treatment by contributing the missing US$ 6 million of its fair share. To continue to fight COVID-19, protect health workers, and defend progress against HIV, TB and malaria, the Global Fund also urgently needs an additional US$5 billion in the next 12 months. To save lives, as well as supplement and protect past investments, Canada should consider allocating additional global COVID-19 response spending to the Global Fund COVID-19 Response Mechanism.
Finally, at home and abroad, we need to develop tools, concepts, capacity, and infrastructure in partnership with affected communities and Indigenous peoples’. We must finance community led responses and community voices must be heard, respected, and included in the response to TB. As revealed in a communities 2020 TB progress report, there is a major and deadly divide between the commitments governments have made to ending TB, and the reality of what is being delivered on the ground. We urge Canada to implement the six calls to action identified by TB-affected communities and civil society, as well as the complementary Indigenous Peoples’ Global Call to Action for TB.
With World TB Day on the horizon (March 24th), we would welcome the opportunity to speak with you for thirty minutes around the week of March 22nd about the contents of our letter. We look forward to working with you to take meaningful, high-impact action to end TB once and for all.
Sincerely,
Stop TB Canada Steering committee
