OSI Builds Momentum for Human Rights at Stop TB Forum

At the 2009 Stop TB Partners’ Forum in Brazil, OSI's Public Health Watch helped build momentum for ensuring human rights protections in TB care.

In coordination with the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa and Human Rights Watch, Public Health Watch organized a session entitled, "Rights and Access: Promoting TB Care for Undocumented Migrants, Drug Users, and Mineworkers," which addressed barriers faced by marginalized groups in accessing TB diagnosis and treatment. Participants in the session discussed creative approaches to providing these populations with appropriate TB care that respects their human rights.

Public Health Watch also worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) to convene a discussion on bringing human rights to the forefront of the TB response. The outcomes of that discussion will inform development of guidelines and a policy framework to direct decision makers, programs, and health care providers in promoting public health and patients’ rights. In addition, the WHO and UNAIDS co-sponsored a session on TB, ethics, and human rights. 

The Stop TB Partnership invited structured recommendations to guide their work, which included integration of the needs of marginalized groups into the expansion of directly observed therapy programs, encouragement of  members to endorse the International Standards of Tuberculosis Care, and creation of a task force to address human rights and TB. At the closing ceremony, Dr. Marcos Espinal, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership, recognized human rights as an important and emerging theme in the field of TB care.