Echoing that message, Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO's Global TB Programme confirmed that WHO is working closely with countries, partners and civil society on innovations "to break the trajectory of the TB epidemic".
According to WHO, there is massive and chronic underfunding for TB research estimated at $1.2 billion a year. On top of this, the shortfall for TB prevention and care is estimated at $3.3 billion in 2019.
This is despite the fact that about one-quarter of the world's population has latent TB, meaning that people have been infected by TB bacteria but are not yet ill with the disease, so they cannot transmit it.
Priority needs include a new vaccine or effective preventive drug treatment, rapid diagnostic tests and safer, simpler, shorter drug regimens. The World Health Assembly-approved Global TB Strategy aims for a 90 per cent reduction in TB deaths and an 80 per cent reduction in the TB incidence rate by 2030 compared with 2015 levels.
The strategy established milestones for 2020 of a 35 per cent reduction in TB deaths and a 20 per cent reduction in the TB incidence rate compared with 2015.
This story was originally published by UN News (Allafrica)
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