Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

World Tuberculosis Day is 24 March. Tuberculosis is such a scourge on our community that in this day and age we are still talking about it. Many Australians believe that this disease was eradicated in the 20th century, that we got rid of tuberculosis all around the world, but that's not the case. Tuberculosis is actually a disease that is rampant, and it is particularly rampant in poorer countries. We know that 4,000 people die from tuberculosis every day and that over 60 per cent of the world's TB cases are right here in our backyard in the Asia-Pacific region. Most of these cases are both treatable and preventable. Drug-resistant tuberculosis remains an ongoing public health crisis for our neighbours, particularly our neighbours to the north, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

I can recall when Labor was in government, as the parliamentary secretary for the pacific islands, I went to Daru, in the western province of Papua New Guinea, on the Fly River, and opened the new tuberculosis clinic, which was funded by the Gillard government. It's still in operation and still providing that vital service for those communities that live in that rural setting along the Fly River. It also has a boat that travels up and down the river providing outreach services for patients and bringing them back to the clinic for treatment. But more needs to be done. More needs to be done in our region and more needs to be done internationally.

With the serious impacts of COVID-19, we know that broader access to TB services now is harder than it has ever been. We see across our region a common theme of TB and inequality, where a lack of nutrition, poor sanitation and unsafe working environments all contribute to the stark reality of tuberculosis in 2021. The COVID pandemic has seen these inequalities worsen and has raised further barriers to life-saving TB prevention and treatment. Across the world, the poorest households and the most marginalised individuals bear the biggest burden and are at most risk of contracting tuberculosis. Indigenous people suffer TB at a rate 270 times that of non-Indigenous populations. Migrants, the homeless, prisoners and people living with HIV are especially vulnerable to TB. When the poor are vulnerable, they try to access health care to treat their TB. It is no surprise that they become poorer as a result of the financial strain of the treatment required. That medical poverty trap can be seen across those individuals and groups that are particularly vulnerable to tuberculosis. Studies have shown that increasing financial pressure associated with TB treatment has meant patients were more likely to abandon treatment or have the treatment fail or simply, unfortunately, pass away. Aside from the pairing of poverty and TB, TB also leads to a lack of access to adequate health facilities, including fast diagnosis and effective medicines.

We have been talking about trying to get tuberculosis under control for too long, for way too long. It's a primary health concern that is particularly pervasive in our region. The time has come for the world to get together to try and find a workable treatment for tuberculosis. The number of invasive drugs that people used to have to take has been decreasing but, surely, the world can put its mind to developing a workable vaccine for tuberculosis? We have seen how quickly the world has acted in response to COVID-19. Tuberculosis has been around for a much longer time and is much more deadly, particularly in poorer countries throughout the world. It is time that we apply the expertise, the know-how and the willingness that we have shown around a COVID vaccine to the development of a vaccine for tuberculosis, for better treatment and better access to healthcare services, particularly in those poorer countries, most of which, unfortunately, are in our region in the Asia-Pacific.

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