Statement by the Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Dr. Mikhail Murashko
at the World Tuberculosis Day 2021 online talkshow, organized by the World Health Organization (WHO)

24 March, 2021

Distinguished colleagues!

Honorable Dr Tedros!

On behalf of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and on my own behalf, I am pleased to welcome you today.

The event takes place in the context of an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. All countries and international associations contribute to the global effort to fight it. At this difficult time, I express my gratitude to the medical community for the efforts made to fight the new coronavirus infection and other infectious diseases. One of them is tuberculosis, which annually claims about 1.5 million lives.

The fight against tuberculosis remains a high priority in the work of the health systems of the entire world community. The need to strengthen measures to end the disease, as well as to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal to end tuberculosis by 2030 was enshrined in the political declaration of the UN high-level meeting on tuberculosis in 2018.

Important step in consolidating the success in the fight against tuberculosis - the WHA73.3 resolution "Global strategy for tuberculosis research and innovation", which was adopted during the 73rd session of the WHA, by Russian initiative and promotes scientific and technological progress in the fight against tuberculosis.

We thank the WHO Headquarters and the WHO Regional Office for Europe, for their cooperation and fruitful work in the fight against tuberculosis. We also note the success of the the first WHO Global Ministerial Conference “Ending tuberculosis in the sustainable development era: a multisectoral response”, held in Moscow in 2017. As a result of this work, a joint three-year project of the Russian Federation and WHO was launched and implemented in 2018-2020, to increase multisectoral measures to end tuberculosis.

The implementation of the project has significantly strengthened the fight against tuberculosis at the global, regional and country levels, especially in countries with the most severe tuberculosis burden. Considering the success of the project, it was decided to extend it for 2021-2023 period with increased funding.

The Russian Federation is among the countries that are on track to achieve the goals of the WHO End TB Strategy by 2035. We are demonstrating a high rate of reduction in tuberculosis incidence and mortality. Thus, the number of cases over the past 20 years has decreased by more than 2 times, and deaths by more than 4 times. According to the WHO Global TB Report 2020, Russia is the number one candidate to leave the high burden countries list.

All our achievements are due to a wide range of applied financial, strategic and organizational measures based on governmental top priority to the problem of tuberculosis. With the support of the Government of the Russian Federation, a range of medical and non-medical measures is being implemented, such as social support for tuberculosis patients, free drug provision from the federal and regional budgets, as well as treatment and rehabilitation. Action planning is carried out at the federal and regional levels, in accordance with specific needs of each region.

Tuberculosis prevention programmes, which include screening of the population to detect the disease, continue to be a priority for maintaining public health. In 2020, 67% of the country's population underwent preventive medical examinations.

To meet the commitments of the Political Declaration to enhance multisectoral and intersectoral collaboration at the national, regional and local levels, we have done a lot of work, including updating the legislation.

The achievements of Russian phthisiology are significant: a new test system for laboratory diagnosis of latent TB infection, new approaches to tuberculosis chemotherapy, which have received WHO approval. An innovative vaccine against tuberculosis, capable of providing both preventive and therapeutic effects, was also developed and researched.

We have created and successfully implemented the Federal Register of patients with TB, which can provide real-time data, prognose the epidemiological situation, and automatically collect statistics on tuberculosis.

Despite the positive trend in the epidemic situation of tuberculosis in the Russian Federation, the problem of MDR TB and TB and HIV coinfection continuing to have an important role. In the last 3 years, we have managed to reduce the prevalence of MDR TB. We continue to develop new effective drugs and the shorter MDR-TB regimen treatments, to improve approaches to the diagnosis and prevention of tuberculosis in people living with HIV.

The Russian Federation managed to maintain a positive trend in reducing the incidence and mortality rate during this difficult year. We made every effort to continue work on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis.

In accordance with the WHO prognosis, the TB incidence and mortality rates may increase, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the seriousness of this threat, countries must make every possible effort to prevent such a scenario from becoming reality and to maintain positive trend in control of both infections.

Only by joining our efforts, we can achieve a sustainable reduction in TB incidence during this difficult time.

In conclusion, I would like to thank countries and representatives of non-governmental organizations for participating in today's event, as well as to express special gratitude to the WHO Director General Dr. Tedros for successful coordination of the work and active engagement in the fight against tuberculosis.

Thank you for your attention!