Health ministers, NGOs, and private sector representatives from 120 countries have adopted the Moscow Declaration, committing themselves to eliminating additional deaths from HIV co-infection by 2020 and achieving synergy in coordinated action against TB and non-communicable diseases. A co-infection is when a person suffers from two infections at the same time.
The Moscow declaration has emphasised the need for fixing multisectoral responsibility towards ending TB by 2035. This framework is critical to creating an enabling operational environment for multisectoral action, fast-tracking priority interventions, monitoring overall progress, and accelerating advocacy at all levels within different sectors. All these efforts are necessary to achieve committed milestones and the targets to end the TB epidemic.
India is among the signatories to the declaration. India has also committed to move to a daily drug regimen. It has also committed to tackle multi-drug resistant TB as a national public health crisis. A national inter-ministerial commission will be set up by 2018 to achieve fast-tracking universal access to health care through all state and non-state care providers by adopting WHO-recommended TB diagnostics, drugs, technologies and standards of care, and ensuring attention to high-risk groups and vulnerable populations such as migrants, refugees and prisoners.
In less than a year, the TB report card will be reviewed by the UN General Assembly in 2018 during a high-level meeting.
