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WHO releases ethics guidance to protect rights of patients with TB
WHO recently issued new tuberculosis ethics guidance that outlines key obligations for countries that implement the End TB Strategy to protect patients’ rights.
According to WHO, communities that are most affected by TB include refugees, prisoners, ethnic minorities and other marginalized populations. The new guidance addresses issues such as the isolation of contagious patients, the rights of patients in prison, and discriminatory policies against migrants affected by TB.
“TB strikes some of the world’s poorest people hardest,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, MD, said in a news release. “WHO is determined to overcome the stigma, discrimination, and other barriers that prevent so many of these people from obtaining the services they so badly need.”
The guidance states that governments, health care workers, nongovernmental organizations, researchers and other stakeholders must:
- offer social support to patients;
- refrain from isolating patients when possible to enable treatment adherence;
- ensure that “key populations” have access to the same standard of care that other citizens are offered;
- ensure that all health care professionals work in a safe environment; and
- rapidly share research to notify national and global TB policy updates.
“The guidance we have released ... aims to identify the ethical predicaments faced in TB care delivery, and highlights key actions that can be taken to address them,” Mario Raviglione, MD, director of the Global TB Programme at WHO, said in the release. “Only when evidence-based, effective interventions are informed by a sound ethical framework and respect for human rights will we be successful in reaching our ambitious goals of ending the TB epidemic and achieving universal health coverage. The [Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)] aspiration of leaving no one behind is centered on this.”
Disclosures: Infectious Disease News was unable to confirm relevant financial disclosures at the time of publication.