The funding will support the overall operations of the TB Alliance, more particularly drug discovery programmes, pre-clinical development and on-going and new clinical trials. It will also help the TB Alliance develop approaches to streamline drug development and testing.
On the 24 March 2006, World TB Day, the World Health Organisation announced that one person dies of TB every 15 seconds in the world, when treatments exist to combat the epidemic. It is estimated that between 2000 and 2020, nearly one billion people will be infected by TB and 35 million will die.
In a report entitled "Global tuberculosis control - surveillance, planning, financing", the WHO stated that Americas, South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions are on track to reach tuberculosis control targets, whereas slow progress has been made in Eastern Europe. Despite commitments from the European Union, the rise of multidrug resistant TB continue to hamper the work to control the disease. Besides, this is usually related to HIV/AIDS infections. According to the annual report, the rates of multidrug-resistant TB in central and eastern European Countries are estimated to be among the highest in the world, with the highest rate of treatment failure and the second highest rate of death as treatment outcom.
The World Health Organisation Euro region therefore calls on Member States to ensure that TB is considered as a priority on the health agenda, in line with the second Global Plan to stop TB (2006-2015).
