WHO Plans To Ask G8 Nations for $30B To Fight TB Worldwide

The World Health Organization plans to ask leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations to raise $30 billion over the next ten years to tackle tuberculosis when they meet in Russia in July, an official from the agency said recently, RIA Novosti reports. Wieslaw Jakubowiak, WHO TB program coordinator for Russia, said the agency is requesting the funding as part of the Global Plan To Stop TB, 2006-2015, which the Stop TB Partnership unveiled in January (RIA Novosti, 5/18). The global plan aims to prevent 14 million deaths from TB and treat 50 million people living with the disease over the next 10 years. Full implementation of the plan will cost $56 billion, $47 billion of which would go toward control programs and $9 billion of which would be allocated for research and development (GlobalHealthReporting.org, 3/17). WHO already has between $26 billion and $27 billion for the plan, Jakubowiak said, adding that leadership from G8 nations, as well as support for the Global Plan and the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, is needed to eradicate TB worldwide (RIA Novosti, 5/18).