WHO will spend $ 47 billion on fighting tuberculosis

The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new plan to fight tuberculosis, designed for five years. The measures envisaged by the document suggest an increase in the costs of diagnosing, treating and researching this infection to $ 47 billion. "The stakes are high: without rapid efforts to eradicate tuberculosis, by 2015, about 10 million people will die from this treatable disease," said WHO spokesman Marcos Espinal. Among the WHO's targets are to bring the success of TB treatment worldwide to 90 percent (as of 2008/2009 this figure is 86 percent), providing HIV testing for 100 percent of tuberculosis patients, increasing the number of laboratories for detecting tuberculosis in developing countries, the introduction of modern methods of diagnosing infection, the development of new medicines. According to the estimates of the international organization, currently about 2 million people die of tuberculosis every year. The overwhelming majority of these deaths occur in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. The cost of medical care for people with tuberculosis in the poorest regions of the world is estimated by WHO at $ 37 billion. Now the financing gap for these measures is $ 14 billion. In addition, the document provides for the allocation of $ 10 billion to fund research programs. Thus, the implementation of the plan is impossible without a significant increase in funding from donor countries. According to WHO calculations, the fulfillment of the tasks set will allow to avoid 5 million deaths during the next five years, that is, to reduce the death rate from tuberculosis by half.