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The dynamic between poverty and lung health will be an underlying theme in many sessions of this year’s Union World Conference on Lung Health on 3-7 December in Cancún, Mexico. Highlights of the scientific programme range from a postgraduate course on public health ethics to the colliding epidemics of tobacco smoking, tuberculosis, HIV and COPD. Read more. . .
Don’t forget! The early-bird registration deadline is 28 August. Click here to register.
Union members receive a 50-euro discount on registration. Click here to join.

“Task shifting in Malawi around antiretroviral therapy” and “Improving access and retention in antiretroviral therapy programmes” were among the topics that Prof AD Harries of The Union addressed at last month’s International AIDS Society (IAS) conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

Congratulations to Turkey! Under the leadership of the Prime Minister, and the direction of The Ministry of Health, all indoor workplaces became smokefree on 19 July. The two-year campaign was supported by civil society. Under the Bloomberg Iniative, partners including the WHO, The Union, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids have been working closely with the Ministry of Health and the Turkish National Cigarette and Health Committee (SSUK) to support the change. Sylviane Ratte of the Department of Tobacco Control participated in a press conference in Istanbul just before the implementation of the ban.

In August 2008 Mexico applied to Green Light Committee (GLC) to request an expansion of its original MDR-TB patient cohort and was approved for a total 242 patients. Now, one year later, an international GLC review team visited the programme and used a new tool, “MDR/XDR-TB Assessment and Monitoring Tool“ developed by PATH to evaluate Mexico’s progress. Raimond Armengol from The Union Latin America Office in Mexico City represented The Union on the review team.

A regional meeting in Chennai, organised by the Partnership for TB Care and Control in India, brought new organisations into the network of groups supporting the efforts of the Revised National TB Control Programme in India.

Bloomberg Initiative (BI) partners met with government officials and tobacco control groups that have received BI grants during a week-long visit in July. They reviewed progress and discussed ways to improve tobacco control in Bangladesh. Three representatives from The Union participated.