At the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, civil society and activist organizations launched a new campaign inspired by the legacy of the late Dr. Paul Farmer calling for the “staff, stuff, space, systems, and support” necessary for shorter, effective TB treatment regimens to reach all who need them as a human right by the end of 2024.
Montreal, Canada, July 31, 2022 – Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and other concurrent global health, economic, social, and political crises, the 1 / 4 / 6 x 24 Campaign, launched during the AIDS conference in Montreal, seeks to improve TB treatment and prevention worldwide based on the latest medical innovations and to reignite the fight to end tuberculosis (TB).
Scientific advances over the last 20 years have made it possible to treat TB infection in as little as one or three months and most forms of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB in four and six months, respectively (the “1 / 4 / 6” in the Campaign name). Yet virtually no one has access to these shorter, more potent regimens.
TB is the leading cause of death of people living with HIV – 214,000 people died last year. We’ve had the same drugs used to treat TB infection and disease for the last half a century. Finally, science has delivered safer, shorter, and more effective regimens. Now is the time for all actors to ensure that people have access to these advances.
The 1 / 4 / 6 x 24 Campaign is about claiming the right of people with TB to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress, a precondition for realizing the right to health. Inspired by the legacy of the late Dr. Paul Farmer, the campaign is focused on getting in place by the end of 2024 the “staff, stuff, space, systems, and support” needed to successfully make available today’s short-course TB regimens – for everyone, everywhere.
“If everyone has a right ‘to share in scientific advancement and its benefits,’ where are our pragmatic efforts to improve the spread of these advances? … even as our biomedical interventions become more effective, our capacity to distribute them equitably is further eroded.”
– Dr. Paul Farmer in Pathologies of Power: Rethinking Health and Human Rights, AJPH 1999
The campaign speaks to governments and other important stakeholders, including donors, researchers, normative bodies, pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies, communities, and the private health sector – all of which have a role to play. Hosted by Treatment Action Group (TAG), Partners In Health (PIH), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Sentinel Project Against Pediatric Drug-Resistant TB, the Global TB Community Advisory Board (TB CAB), and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the campaign launch in Montreal featured presentations and discussions designed to inform the development of global and national campaign strategies. An initial list of campaign “asks and actors” and research priorities is available here: https://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/1-4-6×24-campaign-global-list-of-asks-and-actors/.
Join us!
Partners interested in joining the campaign will commit to help shape the campaign strategy, and to bring perspectives and resources to its implementation, including by pledging why and what they are committing to do by when. For more information and/or to make a pledge, please contact Lindsay McKenna and Mike Frick (Lindsay.McKenna@treatmentactiongroup.org, Mike.Frick@treatmentactiongroup.org).