As the dangerous infectious diseases kept spreading across the North, the damage from this made the international community to pay more and more attention to this problem. In 1998, an Arctic Council SDWG project called ICS was launched as a joint response to threat of the infection. This project was meant to be a circumpolar epidemic surveillance body.
Next decade brought TB to the scope of infections in the North, as its severity was growing higher. This circumstance pushed more regions to join international cooperation. In 2006 ICS has launched a tuberculosis working group. This working group consists of members from Canada, Northern Sweden, northern regions of Russia and the Arctic region of the United States (Alaska). In 2008, the Northern Forum has joined with a new project called “Infectious diseases Circumpolar Surveillance Network”.
Currently this project is implemented by participating organizations from member regions, accompanied by specialists from ex-members of the Northern Forum – State of Alaska and Saint-Petersburg. Despite this project was initiated with aim to cover all types of infectious threats, its focus has moved with time to the TB issue, what later launched the separate Northern Forum working group.
Currently, this project has:
- A determined set of aims and tasks for the TB Working Group
- An executive body of the Working Group and its plan of research
- A TB Working Group that engages practically all Circumpolar states in its activity
- Settled core questions on composition of the international TB database and a position on data transfer between the participants of the WG.
- Formulated an aim for joint research on study of TB in the Northern territories.
- To develop data transfer protocols and provide adequate security measures
- To carry out a retrospective research on TB infection cases for the last 5-6 years
- To build an algorithmic-mathematic model of development of TB epidemiologic process in the Circumpolar North regions.
- To execute international moderation of events dedicated to lower acuteness of the TB epidemiological situation in the Circumpolar North, with an accent on the Indigenous peoples of the North
Core aims for the TB WG for 2014-2015 and in perspective:
Secretariat recommendations:
Under Khanty-Mansiysk chairmanship:
- To elect members of the Working group.
- To outline a working plan for the following 2 years and forward it to the Secretariat no later than 18th of January 2014.
- To hold a seminar in Russia in 2014 to determine opportunities for extension of interregional participation in the project to continue cooperation with the Arctic Council on this project.
- To present a report to the RCC in 2014.
Lead region: Khanty-Mansiysk
Participants:
Sakha - Kravchenko Alexander Fyodorovich, Director for the State Budget Organization of the Sakha Republic, NPC “Phtisiatria” +79246609902 ;
Vinokurova Mariya Konstantinovna, Deputy Director for the State Budget Organization of the Sakha Republic, NPC “Phtisiatria” +79644239494