This week, the ATS and partners convened a U.S. Congress briefing, “Tuberculosis, A Roadmap for Halting the Global Pandemic” on Capitol Hill. The speakers were Eric Goosby, MD, United Nations Special Envoy on TB; ATS Past-President Philip Hopewell, MD; and extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB survivor Tenzin Khenrap. The event was hosted by Representatives Barbara Lee and the co-chairs of the TB Elimination Caucus, Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Don Young (R-AK).

One of the focuses of the briefing was the March 21, 2019 report by the Lancet Commission on TB, of which Drs. Goosby and Hopewell are members. The Commission is expected to lay out a roadmap for achieving the new targets for accelerating the TB response set out in the political declaration signed by 120 countries, including the U.S., at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB on Sept. 26, 2018. Mr. Khenrap spoke movingly of his struggle with XDR-TB, including the loss of his hearing, a side effect of some first-generation antibiotics used to treat XDR-TB. Drs. Goosby and Hopewell urged the U.S. government to continue expanding its investment in the USAID and CDC TB program as well as TB research and development through these agencies and the NIH. 

From left to right Mike Reid, MD; Eric Goosby, MD; Fran DuMelle, ATS Staff;Phillip Hopewell, MD; and Tenzin Kehnrap.