Realizing the World Health Organization’s End TB Strategy (2016–2035): How Can Social Approaches to Tuberculosis Elimination Contribute to Progress in Asia and the Pacific?

Abstract

This review article discusses how social approaches to tuberculosis elimination might contribute to realizing the targets stipulated in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) End TB Strategy (2016–2035), with an emphasis on opportunities for progress in Asia and the Pacific. Many factors known to advance tuberculosis transmission and progression are pervasive in Asia and the Pacific, such as worsening drug resistance, unregulated private sector development, and high population density. This review article argues that historically successful social solutions must be revisited and improved upon if current worldwide tuberculosis rates are to be sustainably reduced in the long term. For the ambitious targets laid down in the WHO’s End TB Strategy to be met, biomedical innovations such as point-of-care diagnostics and new treatments for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) must be implemented alongside economic, social, and environmental interventions. Implementing social, environmental, and economic interventions alongside biomedical innovations and universal healthcare coverage will, however, only be possible if the health and other government sectors, civil society, and at-risk populations unite to work collaboratively in coming years.