Media Centre > Events > 38th Union World Conference on Lung Health

38th Union World Conference on Lung Health

8-12 November 2007, Cape Town, South Africa

For the first time since its foundation, the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (the Union) held its 38th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Africa. The meeting was held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 8-12 November 2007 and brought together 3,000 delegates from more than 100 countries, including 700 from the host country. A total of 200 activists from all over the world also participated in the convention.

In light of the emergence and recent outbreaks of resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB) in various parts of the world, the theme of this year's conference was "Confronting the challenges of HIV and MDR in TB prevention and care". TB and HIV experts together with government ministers, international organizations, civil society, donors, affected persons, and representatives of the private sector also discussed various related key issues. These included global tobacco control, child lung health and asthma as well as TB and HIV co-infection. Numerous sessions provided delegates with opportunities to learn more about recent research findings, new policies, initiatives, case studies and best practices. During the conference, 675 posters were presented for viewing and further discussion.

While some experts and community representatives stressed the importance of improving basic TB control with directly observed treatment, short course (DOTS), they also recognized the urgent need for new tools, namely diagnostics, drugs and vaccines to eliminate TB.

Some of the conference highlights and FIND related events included:

• FIND and BD’s announcement of a pricing agreement for the BD BACTEC^TM MGIT^TM 960 system and reagents for 39 high-burden, low-income countries (Press release)
• A one-day symposium on TB field diagnostics organized by Médecins Sans Frontières during which FIND Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Mark Perkins, presented FIND’s current product pipeline for commercial tests
• A plenary session – “Strengthening laboratory services for today and tomorrow” – in which Dr. Peter Small of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave a key note speech (Full speech | Video)
• The Stop TB Partnership symposium on "XDR-TB and TB-HIV: a threat or opportunity for TB control?" chaired by Dr Rick O’Brien (Video)
• A meeting of the subgroup on Laboratory Capacity Strengthening during which the FIND Head of Product Evaluation and Demonstration, Dr. O’Brien, described FIND’s model for expanding and strengthening TB laboratories, such as in the Kingdom of Lesotho
• The FIND-BD Symposium on MGIT Culture and Drug Susceptibility Testing chaired by Dr. O’Brien (Presentations)
  
• The STOP TB Partnership Retooling Task Force Forum co-chaired by FIND Senior Policy & Implementation Officer, Dr. Vinand Nantulya
• A meeting between FIND and Eiken to notably discuss the TB LAMP assay procedure and the TB LAMP reading device
• A symposium on "Issues involved in culture implementation", chaired and coordinated by the FIND Head of TB Laboratory Support, Dr. C.N. Paramasivan
• A meeting on "MDR-TB, XDR-TB second-line DST", during which FIND Medical Officer, Dr. Catharina Boehme, gave a presentation on "Alternative Tools for Detection of Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Resource-Limited Settings"
• "Challenges of XDR-TB management in high-burden HIV settings", a symposium in which Dr. O’Brien presented "Implementing rapid XDR-TB diagnostic capacity in resource-limited settings"
• A seminar entitled "Bio-safety in the mycobacterium laboratory during which Dr. C.N. Paramasivan made a presentation on Safety precautions for TB microscopy"
• A symposium on "Susceptibility testing against second-line anti-tuberculosis drugs for surveillance and MDR-TB treatment" chaired by Dr. C.N. Paramasivan
• The STOP TB Working Group meeting on New TB Diagnostics (and subsequent poster session) co-chaired by Dr. Giorgio Roscigno and Andrew Ramsay (WHO/TDR). Dr. Nantulya made a presentation on "The process of Retooling"; Dr C. N. Paramasivan introduced the FIND-Zeiss Fluorescence Microscope and identified advantages for better TB diagnosis. FIND Scientific Officer, Dr Heidi Albert’s presentation focused on "The Hain Test: New Reports from South Africa and Tanzania" (Agenda)
• An informal Hain-FIND meeting on the Genotype MTBDRplus® assay for the detection of MDR-TB
• The TB and Poverty Subgroup meeting during which Dr. Nantulya made a presentation on FIND's global access plan
• Presentations titled "Size and character of the market for TB diagnostics (in the place of Mohammed Aziz) and "Is culture worth it?" by Dr Perkins who also chaired a symposium on drug resistance detection
• A Global March for TB through Cape Town asking for new drugs, diagnostics and vaccines.

View pictures
The Union website

Media events included:

View pictures A media visit of the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) in Greenpoint organized by FIND, where tests are being conducted to assess the feasibility and impact of rapid testing of the Hain Genotype MTBDRplus® assay for MDR-TB. The project is being conducted in partnership with the South Africa Medical Research Center. This promising technology provides results predicting resistance to rifampicin and isoniazid in just a few hours. Journalists also had an opportunity to meet and interview NHLS experts, FIND and BD representatives and view the BACTEC systems, which use liquid culture to detect drug resistance and which can dramatically shorten mycobacterial culture recovery time and improve patient management. The laboratory currently has 18 BACTEC MGIT 960 machines and is expecting the installation of a 19th. These can handle 15,000 sputum samples every month (up to 700 per day) which are then confirmed by fluorescence microscopy).

View pictures A new tools media breakfast and press conference with the CEOs of the Global TB Vaccine Foundation (Aeras), FIND and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) to provide journalists with an update on the latest advances in the development of new tools to fight TB. In the past five years, these partnerships have been leading the development of new tools to fight tuberculosis, creating the largest pipeline of new TB diagnostics, drugs and vaccines in history.

View pictures The Union’s press conference on MDR and XDR-TB was moderated by Professor Donald Enarson, Senior Advisor to the Union, and was attended by FIND CEO, Dr. Giorgio Roscigno, who represented the new tools global partnerships. Other speakers included Dr. Mario Raviglione, Director of WHO’s Stop TB Department, who spoke about the response to the growing threat of MDR and XDR TB. Mr. Ezio T. Santos Filho, a TB-HIV activist and health policy analyst from Brazil, described the public health policy in his country and spoke about what activists and affected persons need to do to build more awareness for their needs. Dr. Irene Koek, from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on what the donor community must do to help reverse the trend in the rise of MDR and XDR TB.

View pictures A FIND-Zeiss media briefing on the benefits and challenges of developing better and affordable fluorescence microscopes to diagnose TB and other infectious diseases in high burden countries. This technology was recognized as a promising innovation for a better diagnosis of TB, as it may increase case findings by up to 10%. (Press release)

TV interviews

Dr. Roscigno was interviewed for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and CNBC Africa’s branch in Cape Town. These interviews provided unique opportunities to further describe FIND’s mission and activities as well as enable viewers to gain more information on the need for new diagnostic tests for TB and its resistant forms.

The SABC is South Africa’s national public service broadcaster. CNBC Africa is the continent’s first 24 hour international business channel. Programs are broadcasted throughout Africa and the Middle East.

Awards

FIND Consultant for latent TB infection, Dr. Madhukar Pai, was awarded the Union Scientific Prize in recognition of his outstanding work in the field of TB research. The Scientific Prize of US$ 2,000 is awarded to a researcher under 45 years of age for work on tuberculosis or non-tuberculous lung disease during the past two years. (More)

FIND booth

Visitors to the booth had opportunities to find out more about the foundation and to meet FIND experts attending the conference. Documents, such as the FIND brochure, brief reports describing several diagnostic tests in the FIND product pipeline and recent press releases, were made available to conference attendees.

A video presentation and brochure describing the TB LAMP test (Loop-mediated Amplification Isothermal) technology developed by Eiken and a prototype of the Zeiss fluorescent microscope attracted much interest. (View pictures)