Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

First, I would like to thank the member for Werriwa for moving this important motion, and I congratulate the member for Braddon: his pronunciation of the drug names was excellent! World Tuberculosis Day is on 24 March, a couple of days from now. Tuberculosis—previously known as consumption, phthisis, scrofula, Pott’s disease or the white plague—is an infection by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis primarily affects your lungs, and the bacteria that cause tuberculosis spread from person to person through tiny droplets released into the air via coughs, sneezes, laughter and speaking, making it a highly transmissible disease.

Historically, it is believed that Mycobacterium bovis, which is the cattle form, moved from cattle to humans approximately 20,000 years ago, coinciding with the domestication of animals. It is thought that it almost wiped out the human population at that time. The number of cases of TB has been increasing since 1985, partly due to the emergence of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV weakens a person’s immune system so it cannot fight the TB bacteria.

The first antibiotics used to fight tuberculosis were developed 60 years ago. The Mycobacterium has since developed the ability to survive these antibiotics and that ability has been passed on to its descendants so that we now have drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis. These strains are known as multidrug resistant, or MDR, and extensively drug resistant, or XDR. In 2009, 1.7 million people died of TB, including 380,000 people with HIV. TB affects mostly young adults and occurs mainly in the developing world, with more than half of all cases in Asia. TB is the leading killer amongst people with HIV. In 2009, 9.4 million cases were diagnosed, with 80 per cent coming from just 22 countries. It is a worldwide pandemic, with 13 African countries in the top 15 countries for TB incidence rates and a third of all new cases being found in India and China. According to the WHO Global Tuberculosis Control Report 2009, there may be more than 500,000 new MDR-TB cases diagnosed worldwide, with over 50 per cent coming from China, India and the Russian Federation. XDR-TB has been confirmed in more than 58 countries. Current testing for drug resistance can take more than four weeks, leading to higher mortality rates and the further spread of the disease.

Programs funded in 2009 by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have provided treatment for six million people with active TB. The global fund has provided nearly two-thirds of the external financing for TB and multidrug-resistant, or MDR, TB control efforts in low- and middle-income countries. TB programs supported by the global fund have also provided 1.8 million TB-HIV services. In many countries in which the global fund supports programs, TB prevalence is falling, as are TB mortality rates. To date, programs supported by the global fund have saved 6.5 million lives by providing AIDS treatment for three million people and anti-tuberculosis treatment for 7.7 million people. In October 2010, Australia announced a 55 per cent increase in its commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, bringing its pledge to $210 million over the next three calendar years. Imagine how many more lives could be saved if we could supplement this pledge to ensure that the resources for TB, AIDS and malaria were sufficient. In December 2010, the World Health Organisation endorsed a new rapid test for tuberculosis. This new test can provide an accurate diagnosis in about 100 minutes—

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