Fauci claim: Ukraine war may cause tuberculosis ‘tragedy’
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the president, recently claimed that the war between Russia and Ukraine may cause a new public health crisis: tuberculosis (TB).
According to The Telegraph, Fauci said that the war could be a “terrible public health tragedy” and “devastating” for TB control.
“As a public health official, as a scientist, and as an infectious disease expert, I’m very worried about the disruption that has already happened and that will continue,” said Fauci, adding that a disruption in vaccinating children is part of the “public health crisis”.
It is unclear if Fauci is simply trying to stay relevant as the war between Russia and Ukraine replaces the COVID-19 narrative, or if he is indeed announcing the next public health crisis.
If it is the latter, then the stage seems to have already been set.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported last year that there were about 1.5 million deaths worldwide in 2020 from TB, just behind 1.8 million reported deaths from COVID-19.
The WHO also reported that Ukraine has the fourth-highest TB incidence rate out of 53 countries in the WHO European region, although the case rate has declined. The country registered 127 cases per 100,000 people in 2004-2005, but only 42.2 cases per 100,000 people in 2020.
Also in March of last year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) published an article titled “As 2030 looms we must accelerate progress against TB.” In the piece, the WEF calls TB “a deadly, contagious and airborne respiratory ailment that, until the emergence of COVID-19, claimed more lives each year than any other infectious disease.”
The WEF also mentions that pharma giant Johnson & Johnson, the creators of one of the COVID-19 vaccines, is involved in efforts to fight TB.
“[Efforts] are now being scaled with the help of grants and guidance from experts across Johnson & Johnson to impact more people, illustrating how the current moment provides an opportunity to rethink TB care,” said the WEF.
The same day, the WEF published another piece, titled “End TB: The clock is ticking”, in which the organization advocated for a “digital health” response to TB, which includes surveillance and monitoring.
“The Global Task Force on digital health for TB has identified four areas in which information communication technology can be applied: patient care; surveillance and monitoring; programmatic management; and eLearning,” reads the article.
A few months later, in October, the WEF published another article, titled “What is tuberculosis and why are deaths rising?” Here, the WEF paves the way for a TB vaccine.
“As yet, there is no vaccine effective in preventing TB disease in adults, but results from a Phase II trial of the M72/AS01E candidate have shown promise.”
The WHO revealed that this M72/AS01E vaccine candidate was developed by GSK and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
“The M72/AS01E vaccine candidate was developed by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, in partnership with AERAS. AERAS was a not for profit organization based in the US, aimed at supporting tuberculosis vaccine research, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and other organizations.”
Fauci appears to also be laying out the carpet for a TB vaccine by saying that the current vaccine is not effective enough.
“We have not used cutting edge technology [on TB],” Fauci told The Telegraph. “And we have a lot of people who are not interested in the field of TB because there’s been this somewhat inappropriate mindset, ‘It’s been around for a long time and we do have the BCG vaccine’,” he said.
