Join the live Twitter chat on tuberculosis, 20 March, 4pm.

Experts from WHO/Europe and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) will be answering your questions about tuberculosis during a live Twitter chat on Tuesday 20 March 2012, from 16:00 to 17:00 CET.

The Twitter chat will be jointly hosted by tuberculosis experts Dr Andreas Sandgren from ECDC and Dr Masoud Dara from WHO/Europe.

Topics under discussion include:

• childhood TB;
• urban TB control;
• the joint ECDC/WHO TB report 2010; and
• general information about TB.

How to send questions

Send your questions in the form of tweets to @ECDC_EU or @WHO_Europe, using the hashtag #TBchat

If you are unable to join the live chat, you may leave questions for the experts on our Facebook pages:

WHO/Europe on Facebook

ECDC on Facebook

24 March is World TB Day.

After the live chat, a summary of the discussions will be available on Storify.

Background

Currently, about one third of the world's population is infected with TB. While the WHO European Region continue to mark a decline in the overall notification of TB cases in both European Union (EU) and non-EU countries, the new WHO/ECDC joint report Tuberculosis surveillance and monitoring in Europe 2010, highlights the different epidemiological pictures within the Region, and in particular the worrying spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB).

Concerted actions are being undertaken in developing action plans and monitoring tools to promote the, such as the Consolidated Action Plan to Prevent and Combat M/XDR TB in the WHOEuropean Region 2011–2015, and the ECDC Framework Action Plan to Fight TB in the EU. Work is also ongoing to raise awareness about childhood TB and TB control in big European cities.

More information

Storify: Tuberculosis in Europe
Summary of discussions

Video

Source: WHO_Europe / Storify