Lectures and seminars Seminar with Aamir Khan about innovations in tuberculosis care and prevention in Pakistan
Welcome to the lunch time seminar "Zero TB Karachi: a model for tuberculosis elimination in megacities?" with Dr Aamir Khan, medical epidemiologist and social entrepreneur. Bring your lunch.
In 2017, 10 million people developed tuberculosis (TB), and over 1.6 died from the disease. Over 95% of TB deaths occur in low and middle-income countries, with seven countries accounting for 64% of the total - India leads the count, followed by Indonesia, China, Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, and South Africa.
The number of new TB patients has declined at an unacceptably slow pace of 1.5% per year since 2000 - at this rate, it will take another two centuries to eliminate the disease. Making real progress against the global TB epidemic requires a shift in the way public health programs address the disease. Karachi (Pakistan) is the first megacity to achieve scaled implementation of the comprehensive Search, Treat and Prevent approach known as Zero TB. Early results from Karachi will be shared in this presentation.
Dr. Aamir Khan is a medical epidemiologist and social entrepreneur based in Singapore. In 2004, Dr. Khan founded Interactive Research and Development (IRD), now a Singapore-based not-for-profit committed to improving global health and development through process and technology innovations. IRD has global health delivery teams operating from offices in Dhaka, Dubai, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Karachi and Lagos supporting programs in over 20 countries.
He has led large scale service delivery grants from Global Fund for diagnosing, treating and preventing TB, HIV and Malaria. His research currently focuses on lung health and immunizations, and sustainable models of free and low-cost health care.
Dr. Khan is also founder and director of two social businesses that have received over USD 20m of funding. Interactive Health Solutions, based in Singapore, utilizes information technologies and diagnostic market innovations to improve access to health care in over 30 countries. Community Health Solutions, based in Karachi and Manila, is an aggregator of affordable lung health and chronic disease care through networks of independent private providers. Dr. Khan trained in medicine at the Aga Khan University and has a PhD in international health from the Johns Hopkins University. He has part-time faculty appointments at the Harvard Medical School and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.