Eleventh meeting of national tuberculosis programme managers (London, 2012)

Over the past 15 years, regular meetings have been held between the managers of national tuberculosis programmes in the WHO European Region. These meetings have been organized by the WHO Regional Office for Europe in collaboration with various partners, including KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation (Wolfheze Workshops), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and WHO headquarters. These meetings have witnessed the progressive merging of priorities for tuberculosis (TB) control intervention among all 53 Member States of the Region. Multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB are a growing challenge across the Region. This has led to a new interest in identifying and addressing the risk factors and social determinants of TB and greater focus on innovative approaches for TB prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care.

The WHO Regional Office for Europe organized the 11th national TB programme managers’ meeting back-to-back with the 6th Conference of The Union Europe Region. The managers’ meeting provided an excellent opportunity to discuss the challenges and opportunities shared by all countries in the Region to fulfil the above commitments, achieve Millennium Development Goal 6 by 2015 and discuss the post-2015 StopTB strategy.