WHO issues ethics guidance to protect rights of TB patients

Islamabad

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched new tuberculosis (TB) ethics guidance, which aims to ensure that countries implementing the End TB Strategy adhere to sound ethical standards to protect the rights of all those affected.

The new ethics guidance addresses contentious issues such as the isolation of contagious patients, the rights of TB patients in prison, and discriminatory policies against migrants affected by TB, among others.

The ethics guidance emphasises five key ethical obligations for governments, health workers, care providers, nongovernmental organizations, researchers and other stakeholders namely, to provide patients with the social support they need to fulfil their responsibilities; to refrain from isolating TB patients before exhausting all options to enable treatment adherence and only under very specific conditions; to enable “key populations” to access same standard of care offered to other citizens; to ensure all health workers operate in a safe environmental; and to rapidly share evidence from research to inform national and global TB policy updates.

 “Protecting human rights, ethics and equity are principles which underpin WHO’s End TB Strategy. But it is not easy to apply these principles on the ground. Patients, communities, health workers, policy makers and other stakeholders frequently face conflicts and ethical dilemmas. The current multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) crisis and the health security threat it poses accentuate the situation even further,” a press release issued by WHO Geneva states.

The ethics guidance was launched to coincide with World TB Day, which is an opportunity to mobilize political and social commitment for further progress in efforts to end TB. This year, World TB Day signals new momentum at the highest levels with the announcement of the first-ever Global Ministerial Conference on Ending TB, which will be held in Moscow in November 2017.

The conference will highlight the need for an accelerated multi-sectoral response to TB in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. It will inform the UN General Assembly high-level meeting on TB, which will be held in 2018.