(as prepared for delivery)

• Your Excellency, Dr. Mao Tan Eang, Director of CENAT and Advisor to the Ministry of Health
• Directors of Provincial Health Departments
• Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of USAID, it is a pleasure to be here today.  I would like to thank FHI 360 and CENAT for the invitation. 

There has been important progress made in fighting TB in the last two decades, both globally and here in Cambodia, and I want to congratulate the Ministry and the National TB Program on that success. 

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the collaborative achievements that have been made under this partnership. We have managed to increase the number of TB cases we detected by 5 percent over last year’s achievements, despite the decline in national TB case notification. In 2017, Challenge-TB contributed over one quarter of the total TB cases, or over 8,000. It was also responsible for over half of the childhood TB cases that were diagnosed. The project accounted for 90 percent of all children under 5 in Cambodia who received preventive therapy for TB.

Our collaboration has made it possible to introduce innovative approaches such as contact investigations, active case finding among the elderly, and TB screening in referral hospitals. We are pleased to see these adopted by CENAT and taken to expand under the Global Fund grant for 2018-2020. I would like to thank everyone in this room, as well as those who were not able to attend today, for the combined efforts in support of Challenge-TB.

At today’s gathering, we not only celebrate the achievements and progress we have made, but we also share lessons that can shape to control the spread of TB in the future. We look forward to hearing your about your experiences from the field. We’ll also have the chance to analyze the impact of your experiences and to ensure that future efforts are based on real experiences that will lead to even greater control of TB in Cambodia in the coming years.

Cambodia has decreased the number of undetected TB cases significantly since 2000 but over a third of the estimated total cases are still undetected. I would like to encourage you - as our government counterparts - to continue the momentum and work towards continued success and even greater ownership of the fight against TB. If we are going to stop TB in Cambodia by 2035, this disease still demands a great deal of resources and attention. It remains a priority for USAID and we stand ready to work together to achieve that goal.

Thank you again for inviting me to speak today. I look forward to hearing about the discussions you will hold what is planned to sustainably combat TB.   

Thank you!