Global TB fight receives $600m from Gates

The global fight against tuberculosis has received $600 million (£337 million) in funding from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

However, the campaign launched today [Friday] during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, needs a $31 billion funding increase to prevent 14 million tuberculosis deaths by 2015.

Announcing a tripling of funding from the Gates Foundation over next decade, world leaders were called on to rally behind a major new action plan to treat 50 million people and prevent 14 million tuberculosis deaths worldwide over the next ten years.

The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis from the Stop Tuberculosis Partnership, a coalition of more than 400 organisations worldwide – calls for global tuberculosis spending to triple over the next decade to increase access to tuberculosis control programmes and accelerate research on new tools to fight the disease.

Welcoming the Gates Foundation funding announcement, Chancellor Brown called for the G8 to formally designate tuberculosis a top priority at its next meeting in July, and urged G8 member countries to pledge immediate new funding to implement the Global Plan.

“For far too long, world leaders have ignored the global tuberculosis epidemic, even as it causes millions of needless deaths each year,” he said. “Today’s plan demonstrates that the fight against tuberculosis is one we can win. I hope that the G8 will make fighting tuberculosis a top priority.”

President Obasanjo said implementing the new tuberculosis plan should be also a major priority for African leaders.

“We have a unique historic opportunity to stop tuberculosis, but we must act now,” said Dr Marcos Espinal, Executive Secretary of the Stop Tuberculosis Partnership. “The challenge now is for people to work together in putting the plan into action, in order to stop one of the oldest and most lethal diseases known to humanity. This plan tells the world exactly what we need to do in order to defeat this global killer.”

Since 2000, estimated spending on tuberculosis control in the 22 hardest-hit countries has increased from US$800 million to US$1.2 billion. As a result, the number of patients receiving tuberculosis treatment in these countries more than doubled.

The Plan will be implemented based on a new Stop Tuberculosis Strategy developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which houses the Stop Tuberculosis Partnership.

(SP)