Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I mentioned tuberculosis, most Australians would believe that this is a disease that was eradicated in the 20th century; it was something that we tackled in the past and got rid of in our society. It is not the case. On the eve of World TB Day, I wish to bring to the attention of the House just how severe the issue of TB is throughout the world and how we need to renew our efforts to tackle this deadly disease.

Each year, approximately 100 million people are infected with tuberculosis. Of those, eight million develop active or infectious TB, and about 1.5 million people die. The unfortunate thing is that most of those cases are actually in our backyard, in our region. Of the people infected with TB, 58 per cent are in South-East Asia and in the western Pacific regions. India, Indonesia and China had the largest number of TB cases with 23 per cent, 10 per cent and 10 per cent of the global total respectively. In South-East Asia and the western Pacific regions, 625,000 people died from TB in 2014—more than 40 per cent of global deaths. Clearly, the burden of this disease is particularly heavy in our region.

Besides the human cost, TB in general and drug resistant TB in particular place an extraordinary economic burden on communities and trap people in poverty. It is estimated that TB will rob the world's poorest countries of an estimated $1 trillion to $3 trillion over the next 10 years. The World Bank estimates that the loss of productivity attributable to TB is four to seven per cent of some countries' GDP.

Drug resistant TB is virtually untreatable in many cases and has now been reported in 92 countries, including Australia. Failure to specifically address drug-resistant TB will result in major long-term human and economic costs and ultimately may pose a major threat to regional development and security. Existing medications are outdated and often ineffective. The existing TB vaccine, BCG, is 95 years old, and although it is effective against severe infant TB, it gives relatively little or no protection against adult TB. There are some vaccines being developed, but in reality they are 10 years away from being commercially available.

In 2014 members of parliament from 12 countries met at the annual Union Conference on Lung Health in Barcelona to form the Global TB Caucus. Members of parliament committed to ending TB as an epidemic. The members issued a statement and their commitment to ending the epidemic is known as the Barcelona Declaration. In 2014 the declaration has been translated into 15 languages and signed by over 1,000 political representatives in 100 countries. I am pleased to say that close to 100 members of the Australian parliament made that declaration today at function this morning. In September 2015, political representatives from nine countries gathered in Sydney and also formed the first regional TB caucus of the Asia-Pacific. I am pleased to say that my good friend the member for Leichhardt is the co-chair of the Asia-Pacific forum and today we hosted the first meeting of that caucus. The Global TB Caucus encourages the formation of national caucuses and the launch of today's caucus was part of that.

Over recent years Australia has been supportive of cooperative efforts to fight TB abroad. We have invested in facilities in Daru in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, that I was fortunate to open in 2013 as the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs. Australia has also been a significant contributor to the Global Fund, which since 2002 has saved an estimated 8.7 million lives by providing antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV, TB and other diseases.

The Global Fund is seeking a replenishment for the years 2017 to 2019. They are seeking to raise $13 billion to continue this important work to fight TB. They are seeking $300 million from the Australian government, and I am hoping that the government will see this commitment favourably and commit to meeting that goal of properly funding and doing Australia's bit to fund the Global Fund to tackle tuberculosis, particularly in our region. I thank all those MPs who joined me and the member of Leichhardt for the launch of the Australian TB Caucus this morning.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to respond, particularly acknowledging 24 March as being World Tuberculosis Day. I, like many other Australians, believed that tuberculosis was consigned to the history books along with sanatoriums and iron lungs. My mum was treated for tuberculosis in 1963 and spent a year in the thoracic ward in Cairns. It had a massive impact on our family. She was separated from my siblings, and family members had to care for us. I was the eldest and old enough to be able to visit my mum and spend some time with her, but my three younger siblings were too young to do so, so they were not able to see my mother for a year, until after she was released.

I thought that that problem had been solved and that tuberculosis was no longer an issue, but tonight I rise to raise awareness about the reality of tuberculosis in our communities today and in those of our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2014, 9.6 million people were newly infected with tuberculosis. 58 per cent of those people were in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific region. In these same regions, in 2014, 625,000 people died from tuberculosis—more than 40 per cent of global deaths. Also in 2014, an estimated 480,000 people contracted multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis.

To put a local face on the statistics, in a very recent case, only a week ago I became aware that Cairns's Business Woman of the Year and head of the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre, who has done extensive work in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, had been diagnosed with latent MDR-TB. That is so current and so close to our community. We have lost several in my electorate in recent times, including a mother and daughter with tuberculosis from one of the outer Torres Strait islands. The grand-daughter is now being treated. It is a major issue, and this is why I am passionate about ending tuberculosis in our region.

I was pleased today to officially launch the Australian TB Caucus, along with my friend and colleague Matt Thistlethwaite. There were 15 cross-party members that originally put our names to the Barcelona Declaration, the document that was signed by more than 1,000 political representatives from 100 countries, but I am pleased to say that as a result of today's event we now have 100 representatives here in Australia that have signed that declaration. So 10 per cent of that 1,000 have been signed up here in Australia. Signatories commit to supporting R&D in new drugs, diagnostics and vaccines and demanding that every patient, regardless of age, sex, nationality or socioeconomic status, be able to access quick diagnosis and high-quality treatment.

I urge every member and senator in this place to sign the Barcelona Declaration. These activities gather momentum for caucuses around the world. In the past 12 months, I have welcomed the opportunities through RESULTS and the caucus to raise awareness about TB and to lobby for improved detection rates, treatment and prevention.

In finishing, I was in South Africa late last year, and I met with a Dr Furin, who was with Doctors Without Borders. She said to me that she had visited Daru Island in October 2015. In her words:

I have been working with TB for over 20 years. I have worked in prisons in Russia, in Siberia, and many other high-burden countries and in the most difficult of circumstances therefore nothing generally shocks me.

However, I was absolutely shocked and felt despair from what I saw in Daru, which was far worse than what I have ever experienced and the TB burden is horrific. Having said that, what is most despairing is the fact that with the right application this situation can be quite easily addressed.

It is time that we acted on this, and I certainly call on the support of this parliament to make sure that we take those actions to address this very, very serious problem.