World TB Day, 24 March 2018: “Wanted: Leaders for a TB-free world”

Each year we commemorate World TB Day on March 24 to raise public awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences of tuberculosis (TB) and to step up efforts to end the global TB epidemic. The date marks the day in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes TB, which opened the way towards diagnosing and curing this disease.
Despite significant progress over the last decades, TB continues to be the top infectious killer worldwide, claiming over 4 500 lives a day. The emergence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) poses a major health security threat and could risk gains made in the fight against TB.

The theme: “Wanted: Leaders for a TB-free world”

The theme of World TB Day 2018 – “Wanted: Leaders for a TB-free world”- focuses on building commitment to end TB, not only at the political level with Heads of State and Ministers of Health, but at all levels from Mayors, Governors, parliamentarians and community leaders, to people affected with TB, civil society advocates, health workers, doctors or nurses, NGOs and other partners. All can be leaders of efforts to end TB in their own work or terrain.
This is a critical theme, given the political importance of the upcoming UN General Assembly high-level meeting on TB this year, which will bring together Heads of State in New York. It follows on from a very successful Ministerial Conference on Ending TB in Moscow on 16-17 November, 2017 which resulted in high-level commitments from Ministers and other leaders from 120 countries to accelerate progress to end TB.
World TB Day provides the opportunity to shine the spotlight on the disease and mobilize political and social commitment for accelerate progress to end TB. (WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION)

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Key facts

• Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide.
• In 2016, 10.4 million people fell ill with TB, and 1.7 million died from the disease (including 0.4 million among people with HIV). Over 95% of TB deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• Seven countries account for 64% of the total, with India leading the count, followed by Indonesia, China, Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, and South Africa.
• In 2016, an estimated 1 million children became ill with TB and 250 000 children died of TB (including children with HIV associated TB).
• TB is a leading killer of HIV-positive people: in 2016, 40% of HIV deaths were due to TB.
• Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis and a health security threat. WHO estimates that there were 600 000 new cases with resistance to rifampicin – the most effective first-line drug, of which 490 000 had MDR-TB. Globally, TB incidence is falling at about 2% per year. This needs to accelerate to a 4–5% annual decline to reach the 2020 milestones of the End TB Strategy.
• An estimated 53 million lives were saved through TB diagnosis and treatment between 2000 and 2016.
• Ending the TB epidemic by 2030 is among the health targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.

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Message from RD, WHO South-East Asia Region on the occasion of , World Water Day 2018

Message from Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region on the
occasion of World Water Day, 22 March 2018

World Water Day is a special occasion. On 22 March every year people across the globe take the opportunity to reflect on, celebrate and advocate for clean and abundant water.
As the theme of this year’s World Water Day – “nature for water” – highlights, it is imperative we preserve ecosystems that provide fresh water. Just 2.5% of the earth’s water is fresh. Most is frozen in ice caps. In theory, just 1% of the world’s water is fit for human consumption. In reality, the actual volume is much less.
Contaminated wastewater from human settlements, industries and agriculture is largely to blame for polluting fresh water sources and the environment. Around 80% of wastewater is untreated, introducing millions of pathogens into fresh water supplies and risking human and animal health in the process. In addition, heavy metals, chemicals, antibiotic residues and pesticides contaminate fresh water through the indiscriminate disposal of industrial wastewater and agricultural run-off. This can have far-reaching effect: Contaminated water, for example, can hasten the mutation of microorganisms and the spread of antimicrobial resistance, one of the 21st century’s greatest public health and health security threats.
Nevertheless, Member countries have made substantial progress in providing improved water and sanitation services. When in 2015 the Millennium Development Agenda came to a close more than 89% of the Region’s population had access to improved drinking water sources. More than 51% now have access to improved sanitation.
Despite these achievements, more work is needed. As the sixth Sustainable Development Goal emphasizes, all people everywhere should have access to the water they need. Importantly, that water should be safe and sustainably managed, including by implementing specific targets on preventing contamination and monitoring scarcity.
Doing so will prove beneficial to all Member countries. Despite Region-wide progress in promoting access to improved drinking water, water safety and security remains insufficient, with contamination an ongoing concern. Overcoming these difficulties will advance public health for vulnerable populations, at the same time as reducing water scarcity by increasing the availability of safe water.
WHO is committed to that outcome. For many years WHO has worked alongside Member countries, partners and communities to support the surveillance and regulation of water quality, as well as risk-based management of drinking water and sanitation systems. At all levels, and among all partners, this must be strengthened and further institutionalized.
In particular, the disposal of sewage and industrial wastewater should be better regulated, with proper directives established on the release of effluents. This should be accompanied by systematic monitoring and enforced penalties for non-compliance. Education on the rational use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture should also be carried out to prevent contamination of water sources, as well as education on the efficient use of water. Though technologies for water treatment are available, it is more cost-effective to prevent contamination in the first place.
In noting policy-level solutions, we must be aware of and embrace our own responsibilities. Protecting the safety and abundance of the earth’s water requires each of us to dispose of water-related waste and effluents judiciously. It also requires each of us to commit to preserving a resource that we as humans cannot do without.
This World Water Day, do the necessary: reflect on, celebrate and advocate for clean and abundant water for ourselves, the environment and generations to come.
Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh
Regional Director

WHO SEARO MEDIA CENTRE

World Water Day, on 22 March every year, is about focusing attention on the importance of water. The theme for World Water Day 2018 is ‘Nature for Water’ – exploring nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century.
Damaged ecosystems affect the quantity and quality of water available for human consumption. Today, 2.1 billion people live without safe drinking water at home; affecting their health, education and livelihoods.
Sustainable Development Goal 6 commits the world to ensuring that everyone has access to safe water by 2030, and includes targets on protecting the natural environment and reducing pollution.

Water demand:

• 2.1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services.
• By 2050, the world’s population will have grown by an estimated 2 billion people and global water demand could be up to 30% higher than today.
• Agriculture currently accounts for 70% of global water withdrawals, mostly for irrigation – a figure which rises in areas of high water stress and population density. Industry takes 20% of the total, dominated by energy and manufacturing. The remaining 10% goes to domestic use – the proportion used for drinking water is much less than 1%.

Water availability:

• Today, around 1.9 billion people live in potentially severely water-scarce areas. By 2050, this could increase to around 3 billion people.

Water quality:

• An estimated 1.8 billion people use an unimproved source of drinking water with no protection against contamination from human faeces.
• Globally, over 80% of the wastewater generated by society flows back into the environment without being treated or reused.

SOURCE OF INFO : WORLD WATER DAY 

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Water and health

Contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio. Absent, inadequate, or inappropriately managed water and sanitation services expose individuals to preventable health risks. This is particularly the case in health care facilities where both patients and staff are placed at additional risk of infection and disease when water, sanitation, and hygiene services are lacking. Globally, 15% of patients develop an infection during a hospital stay, with the proportion much greater in low-income countries.
Inadequate management of urban, industrial, and agricultural wastewater means the drinking-water of hundreds of millions of people is dangerously contaminated or chemically polluted.
Some 842 000 people are estimated to die each year from diarrhoea as a result of unsafe drinking-water, sanitation, and hand hygiene. Yet diarrhoea is largely preventable, and the deaths of 361 000 children aged under 5 years could be avoided each year if these risk factors were addressed. Where water is not readily available, people may decide handwashing is not a priority, thereby adding to the likelihood of diarrhoea and other diseases.
Diarrhoea is the most widely known disease linked to contaminated food and water but there are other hazards. Almost 240 million people are affected by schistosomiasis – an acute and chronic disease caused by parasitic worms contracted through exposure to infested water.
In many parts of the world, insects that live or breed in water carry and transmit diseases such as dengue fever. Some of these insects, known as vectors, breed in clean, rather than dirty water, and household drinking water containers can serve as breeding grounds. The simple intervention of covering water storage containers can reduce vector breeding and may also reduce faecal contamination of water at the household level. (WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION)

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