Taiwan’s tuberculosis (TB) incidence rate decreased from 72.5 cases per 100,000 population in 2005 to 49 cases per 100,000 population in 2013. In addition, the TB mortality rate also lowered from 4.3 deaths per 100,000 population in 2005 to 2.6 deaths per 100,000 population in 2013. Our achievements in tuberculosis control are significant and have gained recognition from both domestic and international experts. In light of a substantially decreasing government budget, referring to and learning from other countries’ experiences in TB control is also important when formulating TB control strategies. As a result, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control organized the Conference on Innovative TB Control Strategies to Reach the Goal of TB Elimination by 2035. In addition, the conference is also held to celebrate this year’s World TB Day, which falls on March 24, 2015. Besides sharing our experiences in implementing the “Mobilization Plan to Halve Tuberculosis Incidence in Ten Years”, we also hope to gain an insight into the TB control strategies implemented in other countries.

For this conference, we have invited numerous experts and scholars from the Stop TB Partnership, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD), the U.S., Brazil, the Netherlands, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to share their experiences with TB control and discuss specific issues such as active case finding, TB diagnosis, environmental control and international collaboration. It is also our intention that the conference will spark inspirations that form new ideas and solutions to better address TB among participants and figure out a way to accelerate the process of reaching the post-2015 goal together. As good work cannot be done in isolation, international collaboration is an essential tool in sustaining our current achievements as collaboration provides the capacity to identify, implement, and evaluate TB control strategies such as latent TB infection treatment.

This year marks the last year of our “Mobilization Plan to Halve Tuberculosis Incidence in Ten Years” that was implemented in 2006. With limited resources, we still continue to implement a number of strategies, including proactive TB screening programs, improving laboratory capacity, DOTS (directly observed treatment, short-course) program, contact tracing, latent TB infection treatment and the development of a healthcare system for MDR-TB management. To correspond to the “Global Strategy and Targets for Tuberculosis Prevention, Care and Control after 2015” proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) that aims to reduce the number of annual TB deaths by 90% and the number of people who develop the disease each year by 95%, we pledge ourselves to work harder and commit to the global goal of TB elimination by 2035.