Yesterday, on 30 June, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved the draft law No.6037 On Fighting TB. 341 deputies voted for improving the TB legal framework. The draft was submitted by Tatyana Bakhteyeva (Party of Regions), Chairman of the VR Health Care Committee, and Raisa Sorochinskaya-Kirilenko (BYuT), the Committee member and People's Deputy. The second reading is planned for September after the deputies' recommendations are accepted. If approved, the law will come into force in January 2011.

Rinat Akhmetov's Foundation for Development of Ukraine initiated the development of the new TB Law and actively participated in the preparatory works on the draft and its promotion. Since 2007, the FDU has been implementing a large-scale Stop TB project. The work on the draft law involved members of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, State Department for Execution of Punishments, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, Yanovsky Institute of Phthisiology and Pulmonology, the World Health Organisation Office in Ukraine, regional TB doctors, as well as representatives of international and national NGOs.

The new law will provide the following benefits:

- international standards of TB diagnostics, treatment and prevention
- a mechanism of competition and collaboration between the state and private sectors. This will help to raise quality and economic effectiveness of anti-TB measures
- the most straightforward and transparent procedure of obligatory isolation

Moreover, the Law will set forth the necessary legal conditions in order to:

- improve TB control
- prevent the spread of multi-drug resistant TB
-  provide social services and social support to the TB-infected people to make them committed to treatment
- improve social protection and motivate different categories of staff that provide medical and social aid to the people with TB

The Law will regulate issues related to TB diagnostics and treatment. Thus, we can put into balance the needs to satisfy the public health demands and to ensure the individual right for a free choice of treatment.

The draft law is available on the FDU's website (http://www.fdu.org.ua/en/cat/247)

Press-release
01|07|2010
Kiev

Press office

Rinat Akhmetov’s Foundation
for Development of Ukraine
+38044 502 52 12