On 22-24 June 2016, Bratislava hosted the 7th Union Europe Region Conference organized by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. The key speakers included Marieke van der Werf (ECDC, Stockholm), Mаrio Raviglione and Knut Lonnroth (WHO, Geneva), Lee B. Reichman (New Jersey Medical School, USA), Giovanni Battista Migliori (Italy), Aksmit Timothy (USA), Martin van den Boom (WHO, Copenhagen), Viorel Soltan (PATH Center, Moldova) and others.
Alliance for Public Health (Alliance) was represented by Andriy Klepikov, Executive Director, and Yuliya Chorna, Project Manager: TB Advocacy, who made a valuable contribution to the conference. At the session ‘Transforming and optimizing patient-centred models of TB care in countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU)’, Alliance was presented to the participants by Martin van den Boom (WHO Regional Office for Europe) as one of the partners of the TB-REP Regional Project.
On the last day of the conference, Andriy Klepikov together with Fanny Voitzwinkler, Head of EU Office of the Global Health Advocates, facilitated the final session “Road to Bratislava 2016: A Uniting Call from TB and HIV Stakeholders for European Political Leadership in the Fight against Communicable Diseases”. This session was organized by the TB Europe Coalition (TBEC) and was of a particular importance as Slovak Republic will take over the Presidency in the Council of Europe on 1 July 2016. The Executive Director of Alliance pointed out: “This is the crucial moment, when the Slovak Republic, coming from its achievements in the fight with TB, will be able to prioritize the question of ending TB in Europe.”
“Co-infection of TB, HIV, hepatitis – all those issues are associated with TB, so TB cannot be tackled alone, but addressed in comprehensive manner. Another important issue is the needs of vulnerable populations, who require all types of support to overcome the crisis situations they face”, – underlined Andriy Klepikov during the closing part of the conference.
Now there are great expectations for the leaders of the countries in the respective region to keep TB among the political priorities and to draw more attention to the issue. They need to not only ensure sufficient attention to TB at all levels, but also enhance all the available mechanisms to fight with tuberculosis and actively involve communities to overcome this problem!