The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis has received a 600 million US dollar (3,7 milliarder DKR)) boost from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, BBC Online reports Friday.
The campaign, backed by more than 400 organisations worldwide, aims to treat 50 million people in the next 10 years. Launching the plan with UK Chancellor Gordon Brown and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr Gates said it was a “chance to save 14 million lives”.
Mr Gates has already committed 300 million dollar to the programme, but the total cost of the plan will be 56 billion dollar over 10 years. The programme was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
– Every 15 seconds somebody dies of TB, avoidably, preventably, said Mr Brown, noting that tuberculosis have been declared an emergency by 46 countries in 2005.
Marcus Espinal, in charge of the TB programme of the World Health Organization, predicted that “we will break the back of the global TB epidemic”.
With 15 diagnostic tests and 28 new medicines in development, it should be possible to revolutionise the treatment of tuberculosis, shrink treatment time and beat drug resistance, he said.
A tuberculosis vaccine could be developed by 2012, he predicted. The plan aims to implement one of the UN Millennium Goals, which called for a halt in the spread of TB and progress in reducing incidences of the disease by 2015.
The Global Fund hopes to spend about 47 billion dollar on TB treatment and control, and 9 billion dollar on research and development, BBC adds.
