Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to welcome you all to the intercountry workshop for developing strategic plans on tuberculosis control. As all of you know, this is an extremely important workshop for tuberculosis control for the Region.

In the past several years, countries have expanded DOTS throughout the network of Ministry of Health services. Most countries achieved 100% DOTS coverage and good treatment success. Even Pakistan, which has by far the highest burden of tuberculosis in the Region, is expected to achieve 100% DOTS coverage by May 2005. Countries in this regard have laid the groundwork for effective tuberculosis control. In other words, they have completed the first stage in the development of tuberculosis control.

The next stage is to improve DOTS quality and fully implement the new approaches. This will aim at achieving the global targets of 70% case detection and 85% treatment success as soon as possible, if not yet. In this stage, we should enhance the implementation of the key components of DOTS such as laboratory diagnosis, surveillance and drug management. We should also fully embrace new approaches such as public–private mix DOTS, collaboration between HIV and tuberculosis control programmes, DOTS Plus, the Practical Approach to Lung Health, and advocacy, communication and social mobilization.

Attainment of this second stage is critical for us to make a real epidemiological impact on tuberculosis. We need to achieve the global targets of 70% and 85% first, as only by achieving the targets we can reduce the burden of tuberculosis and achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving the incidence, prevalence and mortality of tuberculosis by 2015.

We have organized this workshop with the support of our colleagues at WHO headquarters to address how we can proceed and achieve the global targets and goals. This workshop is actually a part of the global exercise. The global Stop TB partnership secretariat has been coordinating the development of the second global plan to Stop TB. The plan provides a roadmap for tuberculosis control over the decade of 2006 to 2015. The Plan will set out the actions needed to reach the Millennium Development Goals directly relevant to tuberculosis control. A first global workshop took place in Switzerland.

In this workshop, we have three objectives. The first and foremost is to identify the strategic directions and overall activities to be undertaken in the countries with a high burden of tuberculosis. We need to specify how to enhance key components of DOTS and also to introduce new approaches so as to achieve the global targets as soon as possible, and the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Country plans will then be incorporated into the regional strategic plan for the next 10 years. Consequently, we will evaluate the epidemiological impact on tuberculosis situation and will assess the costs to be considered in the plans.

To achieve these objectives, we have invited two people each from countries with a high burden of tuberculosis to the workshop. One is of course the manager of the national tuberculosis programme, who should continue to take the leadership role. We also invited a person from the planning section in the Ministry of Health who can contribute to this exercise, particularly with regard to costing. By the end of the workshop, each country is expected to have overall directions for their national strategic plans in the next ten years with costing estimates.

We know this is hard work, and we wish you good luck and a nice stay in Cairo.