“OUR CALL TO COUNTRIES IS TO DO BI-DIRECTIONAL TESTING FOR TB AND COVID-19”
Future Medicine India|May 2021
DR LUCICA DITIU is the Executive Director of Stop TB Partnership— one of the most influential advocacy voices on global health and tuberculosis that provides support for a TB response to achieve a world without TB. A specialist in lung diseases from Romania, Dr Ditiu started her international career with the WHO in January 2000 as a medical officer for TB in Albania, Kosovo and FYR Macedonia within the disaster and preparedness unit. She has worked for the past 18 years with WHO and the UN system at every level: national, sub-regional, regional and global. At the helm of the Stop TB Partnership for the past eight years, Dr Ditiu has been relentless in pushing for the inclusion of everyone affected by TB. In an interaction with S HARACHAND, she speaks about the international body’s ambitious goal to make the world free of the curable infectious disease and how the programme has been impacted by various challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
S HARACHAND
“OUR CALL TO COUNTRIES IS TO DO BI-DIRECTIONAL TESTING FOR TB AND COVID-19”

Edited excerpts:

A recent report by Stop TB Alliance says that 12 months of COVID-19 eliminated 12 years of progress in the global fight against tuberculosis. What are your strategies to mitigate the pandemic effect?

The COVID-19 pandemic is a big setback for the global efforts to eliminate TB. We need to see what can be done to mitigate the impact.

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