The 79th World Health Assembly has approved development of a post-2030 tuberculosis strategy, requesting WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus coordinate consultations presenting a draft at the 81st World Health Assembly in 2028.

WHO said Thursday the strategy “will guide the future TB response using emerging scientific advances and current epidemiological trends”, while aligning tuberculosis programmes with primary healthcare, universal health coverage, and priorities.

The agency said the strategy supported preparations for the 2028 United Nations High-Level Meeting on tuberculosis, sustaining political momentum beyond the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals deadline amid inequality, conflict, displacement, underfunding.

According to WHO, expanded tuberculosis treatment saved an estimated 83 million lives between 2000 and 2024, while 2024 recorded the first post-pandemic decline in infections and highest access to tuberculosis services.

WHO warned that tuberculosis remained a leading infectious killer in spite of progress, citing gaps caused by pandemic disruptions, climate-related displacement, inequality, conflict, and underfunding, leaving End TB Strategy and 2030 targets unmet.

In a separate resolution, delegates recognised steatotic liver disease as a growing noncommunicable disease burden affecting 1.7 billion people globally, with obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and alcohol-associated liver disease driving complications.

The resolution urged countries to integrate steatotic liver disease into national noncommunicable disease strategies, strengthen primary healthcare, improve surveillance, address unhealthy diets and alcohol use, while WHO provides support and reports.

“Member states also endorsed a resolution on haemophilia and other bleeding disorders to close gaps in diagnosis, treatment, and care,” WHO said, noting 70 per cent of patients globally remain undiagnosed.

WHO said countries would strengthen diagnostic capacity, referral pathways, medicine access, data collection, and public awareness, while delegates warned that health misinformation threatened public safety and required multisectoral collaboration and engagement.

(NAN)