Results is independent from corporate funding or government donations. October 17 – International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (IDEP) – is a globally recognized day to stand in solidarity with those living in extreme poverty. A most impactful way to support Results Canada is creating your own personal fundraising page.
expert fact
Fundraising is a great skill to have as an advocate. Just be yourself, communicate why this is important to you and do not be afraid to ask for donations: you will never know the answer if you don’t ask!
secret tip
The beauty of being part of the Results Canada volunteer network is that you are never alone: reach out to Results volunteers – especially those nearby as you can walk together, cook, etc.
Write an LTE if you want to make your opinion heard in a timely manner. You don’t need a lot of research, and your LTE can be brief and to-the-point - just 150-200 words! When time is of the essence, choose to write an LTE.
expert fact
Once submitted, you can track your letter by doing an internet search of your name and following up with the publication to find out if/when it is getting published.
secret tip
Your letter doesn’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to be an expert to have an opinion. You simply need to care.
Use your voice on social media to tell Canada why they need to TB and the need to increase investments in research and development for TB.
expert fact
Tweets with images can receive approximately 160% more retweets than those without.
secret tip
When posting on social media, be genuine and speak from the heart. People want to connect with other human beings online, so be yourself and it'll help you get your message across!
“If we cannot find TB, we cannot treat TB. And if we cannot treat TB, we cannot end TB.”
- Dr. Madhukar Pai, Associate Director of the McGill International TB Centre
In April, we launched the nine-month #GameChangers2030 campaign to advocate for game-changing partnerships, innovations, and people to build a more equal world, especially in the face of mounting and interlocking crises. From July to September, we are calling on Canada to take meaningful action to end tuberculosis – the world’s deadliest infectious disease.
The ask: To end tuberculosis and to prepare for future threats, Prime Minister Trudeau must participate in the United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB this September and commit 0.15% of Canada’s overall research and development expenditure annually to developing and delivering new tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat this deadly infectious disease.
Of the estimated 10.6 million people who fall ill with tuberculosis (TB) every year, 4.2 million are missed by health systems. This means they do not receive a diagnosis or the care they need.
Billions of people, or about a quarter of the world’s population, are estimated to be infected with the bacterium that causes TB. Given that 5–10% will eventually develop TB disease, getting an accurate diagnosis can be a matter of life or death. Therefore, access to diagnostic tools is essential to addressing the TB epidemic. However, diagnosis remains the weakest link in the TB continuum of care. There is a large gap globally between the estimated number of people who fall ill with TB and the number of people diagnosed. between the estimated number of people who fall ill with TB and the number of people diagnosed.
High cost, low accuracy, inefficient sample collection, and limited accessibility of tests are preventing full access to diagnostic tools. This presents significant barriers to TB elimination, because we cannot end TB if we cannot find TB.
While early detection and appropriate treatment can cure TB, the high rate of TB infections highlights a lack of prompt diagnosis and treatment. Most TB diagnostic tools require a sample of sputum (mucus coughed up from the respiratory tract), but many cannot easily produce this, including people living with HIV, people with TB outside of the lungs, and children.
Luckily, #GameChangers in research and development (R&D) are working to improve the tools available to test for TB.
Ensuring that people with TB are not missed by health systems will require equitable access to non-sputum based diagnostic tests that are available where people are first accessing care. This means bringing tests closer to people, rather than requiring them to travel to centralized healthcare facilities. Ongoing development of new tools – like self-testing technologies along with tongue swabs and urine-based tests to simplify sample collection – will bring diagnostics to lower local levels of the health care system, helping to meet people and communities where they are.
more about non-sputum tests
The development of non-sputum tests to diagnose TB has been a #GameChanger in simplifying the sample collection process. Urine LAM tests, for example, only require a urine sample that can be collected in their own communities, similar to a pregnancy test.
Product Development Partnerships, like FIND Diagnostics are working on developing additional tests to simplify sample collection and improve diagnostics for TB. Some innovations in the pipeline include tongue swabs and molecular point of care tests, similar to self-tests for Covid-19, as well as face masks that are used to detect TB after being worn.
Seven transitions that can transform how TB is diagnosed and close the diagnostic gap. Click here for more information.
While the science to develop new TB diagnostic tools is there, this progress, as well as the timely roll out of new technologies, is threatened by the severe funding shortfall for TB research and development (R&D). In 2018, at the first United Nations High-Level Meeting (UN HLM) on TB, member states committed to providing US$2 billion annually for TB R&D and for each donor country to contribute its “fair share”: 0.1% of its total R&D expenditure.
Every year since this commitment was made, the world has failed to meet the target even as the burden of TB increased for the first time in two decades. Canada, for example, hasn’t contributed its fair share even once – in 2021, it met only 67% of the target.
To make matters worse, the annual funding need for TB R&D has more than doubled due to years of severe underfinancing as well as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on TB programming. The Stop TB Partnership’s Global Plan to End TB 2023-2030 calls on funders to contribute US$5 billion annually for TB R&D. In 2021, only US$1 billion was raised.
That’s why we are calling on Canada to reaffirm its commitment to ending TB through Prime Minister Trudeau’s meaningful participation at the UN HLM on TB this month. But a political commitment isn't enough. Canada must back its word up with real action by meeting the updated “fair share” target of allocating 0.15% of its total R&D expenditure to TB and champion the development and delivery of new tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat TB. With the funding and political will to promote scientific development, game-changing innovations will bring us closer to a world where no one suffers from TB.
The ask: To end tuberculosis and to prepare for future threats, Prime Minister Trudeau must participate in the United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB this September and commit 0.15% of Canada’s overall research and development expenditure annually to developing and delivering new tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat this deadly infectious disease.
latest campaign news
#YesWeCanEndTB:
Throughout this year, Results volunteers and Fellows have gone above and beyond in taking meaningful actions to support #YesWeCanEndTB campaigns – starting with our ask for Canada to invest in TB REACH earlier this year to our more recent call for increased investments in TB research and development. These dedicated individuals took action by getting landmarks to be lit for World TB Day, meeting with parliamentarians to discuss TB, publishing 35 LTEs and 19 op-eds in newspapers, and using social media to raise awareness. The momentum is building, and the government is feeling the pressure. Join us in our final month of advocacy to #EndTB and stay tuned for how it all plays out at the UN High Level Meeting on TB on September 22!
#GameChangers2030 (August):
In the lead-up to the G20 Summit in September, Results Canada put together eight recommendations for Canada’s engagement, particularly focused on the needs of marginalized communities and ensuring equitable response and recovery for future pandemic threats. In the G20 Health Ministers’ Outcome document released recently, we were pleased to note the issues we advocate for represented, including commitments to end HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and polio eradication
story
B. Narayana, TB preventive therapy coordinator, Telangana, India
B. Narayana works as a TB preventive therapy coordinator with the Joint Effort for Elimination of TB (JEET). He visits the homes of those affected by active TB disease in the Indian state of Telangana. He conducts screenings for family members living with people with TB to ensure that they receive a diagnosis if they have been infected. During these visits, he is also able to follow up on treatment adherence for those with TB.
“The majority of the families are not aware about TB prevention and treatment. One-to-one counseling is needed to spread awareness about TB, its spread, the available diagnostics, and treatment duration.”
This work is critical, especially in high-burden TB countries like India, where more than 2 in 5 people may harbour TB infection, without showing symptoms.
6: International Literacy Day 9-10: G20 Summit 20: UN High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response 21: UN High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage 22: UN High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis 30: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Check out our full key dates calendar
