At a meeting organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the health ministers from countries with the greatest burdens of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) have agreed to take a series of actions to accelerate efforts to halt and reverse the global epidemic of the deadly disease. Senior health ministry officials from India also participated in the meeting.

Global leaders, including WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Bill Gates, Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang, ministers and high-level representatives from 27 countries with high burden attended the three-day meeting in Beijing.

According to WHO estimates, four of the countries represented at the three-day meeting - China, India, the Russian Federation and South Africa-- account for 60 per cent of the global number of MDR-TB cases and have increased their financing for TB control. Still, only 3 per cent of the half million MDR-TB cases estimated to emerge each year worldwide are known to be receiving treatment according to WHO guidelines.

Participants committed to help mobilize the estimated US$ 15 billion needed to finance the TB and M/XDR-TB response from both domestic and international resources through to 2015, and called for increased investment in the research and development of new TB diagnostics, drugs and vaccines. They asked for WHO and the Stop TB Partnership to ensure there is the necessary technical support needed to implement the M/XDR-TB response plans.

The governments present issued a Call for Action at the conclusion of the opening day of the meeting. The Call for Action, which was supported by senior representatives from international health and aid agencies and non-governmental organizations, asserted that all countries would move towards universal access to M/XDR-TB diagnosis and treatment by 2015 and to ensure removal of financial barriers to TB care. It also called upon the nations to ensure development of a comprehensive M/XDR-TB management and care framework and to ensure sufficient staff are trained and deployed to face the menace.

The meeting called upon the nations to strengthen laboratory systems; to ensure collaboration with all partners; to ensure development and implementation of airborne infection control policies; to ensure a sufficient supply of high-quality anti-TB drugs; to strengthen mechanisms to ensure availability of TB medicines is regulated; to ensure advocacy and communication and social mobilization are included in policies and plans; and to develop the new tools needed to combat M/XDR-TB.

WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan said preventing and managing drug-resistant TB was a global health imperative. "We need high-level political attention because national TB programmes cannot by themselves manage these new threats. The problem has become too great," she said.