Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the request of Senators Moore, Fierravanti-Wells, Di Natale and Singh, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) 24 March is World Tuberculosis Day, and marks the anniversary of German Nobel laureate, Dr Robert Koch's 1882 discovery of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis,

(ii) tuberculosis is contagious and airborne, ranking as the world's leading cause of death from a single infectious agent,

(iii) in 2016, 1.7 million people died from tuberculosis worldwide and 10.4 million people became sick with the disease, with over 60% of cases occurring in countries in our region,

(iv) large gaps in tuberculosis detection and treatment remain, with 4.1 million cases of active tuberculosis that were not diagnosed and treated in 2016, including 600,000 children,

(v) in 2016, Papua New Guinea (PNG) had one of the highest rates of tuberculosis infection in the Pacific, with an estimated 35,000 total cases, including 2000 drug-resistant cases, not taking into consideration the large number of cases that go unreported in many regions; and

(vi) tuberculosis is:

(A) the leading cause of death among HIV positive people globally—HIV weakens the immune system and is lethal in combination with tuberculosis, each contributing to the other's progress,

(B) now linked to non-communicable diseases like diabetes, and

(C) considered a preventable and treatable disease, however many current treatment tools—drugs, diagnostics and vaccines—are outdated and ineffective;

(b) recognises:

(i) that the funding that Australia is providing to support the testing and treatment of tuberculosis in PNG, including the joint program with the World Bank, is already leading to an initiative to achieve universal testing for tuberculosis in Daru,

(ii) the commitment of up to $75 million over five years for Product Development Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific Health Security Initiative to accelerate access to new therapeutics and diagnostics for drug resistant tuberculosis, and malaria and mosquito vector control—an increase in funding to build on the successes of Australia's previous investments,

(iii) Australia's three year $220 million pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (2017-2019)—a fund that has supported tuberculosis testing and treatment to 17.4 million people since 2002, including over 8.2 million people in the Indo-Pacific region,

(iv) that through our endorsement of the Sustainable Development Goals in September 2015, we made a bold commitment to end the tuberculosis epidemic by 2030, and

(v) the scheduling of the first United Nations High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis in September 2018, which will set out commitments to accelerate action towards ending tuberculosis as an epidemic and provide Australia with an opportunity to showcase the success of our investment in tuberculosis in our region; and

(c) calls on the Australian Government to attend the United Nations High-Level Meeting this year, and commit to increased Australian action and leadership on research and development, prevention, testing and treatment as part of the global effort to eradicate tuberculosis.

Question agreed to.