Global Fund issues TB reminder

The status of tuberculosis (TB) as the world’s leading killer among infectious diseases has been underlined by the Global Fund amid a report’s claim of a funding gap of $3.5 billion in 2018 alone in the fight to end its deadly impact.

Released ahead of a United Nations meeting next week, the new World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Report 2018 also states that 36% of people with TB are missed – either undiagnosed, untreated or unreported. Approximately 10 million people fell ill with the disease in 2017, and 1.6 million of those died.

Set up to accelerate the end of AIDS, TB and malaria as epidemics, the Global Fund is a partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and people affected by the diseases.