Stop TB Partnership

# About the Stop TB Partnership
The Stop TB Partnership was established in 2000 to realize the goal of eliminating TB as a public health problem and, ultimately, to obtain a world free of TB. It comprises a network of international organizations, countries, donors from the public and private sectors, governmental and nongovernmental organizations and individuals that have expressed an interest in working together to achieve this goal.

# History
The Stop TB Initiative was established following the meeting of the First ad hoc Committee on the Tuberculosis Epidemic held in London in March 1998. The Stop TB Initiative produced the Amsterdam Declaration to Stop TB in March 2000, a defining moment in the restructuring of global efforts to control TB, which called for action from ministerial delegations of 20 countries with the highest burden of TB. The World Health Assembly the same year (2000) endorsed the establishment of a Global Partnership to Stop TB and two targets for 2005: to diagnose 70% of all people with infectious TB, and to cure 85% of those diagnosed.
Partners came together at the First Stop TB Partners' Forum held in Washington D.C. in October 2001 to launch the Global Plan to Stop TB - the overarching framework of the Stop TB Partnership's combined actions. The Second Stop TB Partners' Forum, held in New Delhi in March 2004, produced the New Delhi Pledge which reaffirmed ministerial commitments to meet the 2005 targets and to frame a second global plan for guiding Partnership efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals targets for TB by 2015.

# Rationale
From humble beginnings, the original Stop TB Initiative has evolved into a broad Global Partnership to Stop TB. The Partnership involves all those organizations and individuals committed to short- and long-term measures required to control and eventually eliminate TB as a global public health problem. Partners have coalesced into Working Groups to accelerate progress in seven specific areas: DOTS Expansion, TB/HIV, MDR-TB, New TB Drugs, New TB Vaccines, New TB Diagnostics, and Advocacy, Communications and Social Mobilization. These mechanisms have enabled the Global Partnership to Stop TB to expand, carry forward work plans, and support countries in their efforts to accelerate action against TB, as called for in the Amsterdam Declaration to Stop TB.

# Vision
Our vision is a TB-free world: the first children born this millennium will see TB eliminated in their lifetime.Stop TB is a global movement to accelerate social and political action to stop the unnecessary spread of TB around the world.
Targets
By 2005: 70% of people with infectious TB will be diagnosed and 85% of them cured.
By 2015: the global burden of TB disease (deaths and prevalence) will be reduced by 50% relative to 1990 levels.
By 2050: The global incidence of TB disease will be less than 1 per million population. (Elimination of TB as a global public health problem.)
Mission
To ensure that every TB patient has access to effective diagnosis, treatment and cure.
To stop transmission of TB.
To reduce the inequitable social and economic toll of TB.
To develop and implement new preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic tools and strategies to stop TB.
In order to achieve our mission and make our vision a reality, the Stop TB Partnership has set the following goals:
Promote wider and wiser use of existing strategies to interrupt TB transmission by:
increasing access to accurate diagnosis and effective treatments by accelerating DOTS implementation to achieve the global targets for TB control; and
increasing the availability, affordability and quality of anti-TB drugs.
Derive strategies to address the challenges posed by emerging threats by:
adapting DOTS to prevent and manage MDR-TB, and to reduce the impact of HIV-related TB.
Accelerate elimination of TB, by:
promoting research and development for new TB drugs, diagnostics and vaccines; and
promoting adoption of new and improved tools by ensuring appropriate use, access and affordability.
WHO Housing Arrangement
The World Health Organization has a dual role in the Stop TB Partnership. As a leading agency in the partnership, WHO provides guidance on global policy and has permanent representation in the Stop TB Coordinating Board. WHO is also the housing institution of the Stop TB Partnership Secretariat, which benefits from the mechanisms of WHO. The secretariat follows the rules and regulations of WHO for its administrative, financial and human resources management, subject, if necessary, to the adaptations which might be required in order to meet the particular needs of the Stop TB Partnership.