Tuberculosis Overview

New funding and interest in tuberculosis is producing encouraging results.

Programs supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have detected and treated 4.6 million cases of active TB. New diagnostic tools have the potential to strengthen basic TB control and help slow the spread of drug-resistant TB. Ongoing research into new vaccines and drugs has the potential to save many millions of lives.

TB has global impact.

One-third of the world’s population has been infected with tuberculosis, a potentially fatal bacterial disease that primarily affects the lungs. Although most people carrying TB germs in their bodies do not have symptoms and are not contagious, “active” TB is debilitating and contagious.

Every year, more than 9 million people develop active TB and 1.7 million people die from the disease. While the greatest number of existing cases are in Asia, the majority of new cases are in Africa, where high rates of HIV weaken immune systems and accelerate the spread of TB. Because TB principally attacks young people during their most economically productive years, affected communities get caught in a cycle of illness and poverty.

New diagnostic technologies hold promise.

New technologies and tests can speed up the diagnosis of both basic and drug-resistant TB. Quicker diagnosis enables patients to begin appropriate treatment fast, which can help prevent further transmission. The current TB diagnostic test uses 125-year-old technology and fails to identify the active disease in half the cases. The test misses even more cases of TB in people with HIV.

In recent years, TB control efforts have taken on increased urgency due to the emergence of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB), a form of the disease that is resistant to at least two first-line TB drugs. Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is resistant to both first-line and some second-line drugs.

We're working to help prevent and treat TB around the world.

Next: Our Approach

We support the goals of the World Health Organization’s Global Plan to Stop TB, which aims to treat 50 million people with TB and prevent 14 million deaths from the disease by 2015. Our strategy supports efforts to:

Research the basic biology of the disease.

We are working to better understand the basic biology behind the disease, which is essential for developing solutions to end TB.

Develop better tests.

We support research and development of new diagnostic tests that will identify people with TB rapidly and before they infect others. Early detection can break the cycle of transmission that perpetuates the epidemic.

Develop new vaccines.

We fund efforts to develop new, more effective TB vaccines and ensure they are affordable and available to all who need them. For example, we support the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation in its efforts to develop TB vaccines for infants and adolescents.

Develop fast and effective drugs.

We support the development of more effective and faster-acting TB drugs that can be used by all infected people, including those with drug-resistant TB and those with HIV. For example, we fund the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, which currently is developing nine potential TB drugs (two of which are in clinical trials).

Make better use of existing methods.

While future vaccines, drugs, and diagnostic methods offer great promise, they will take time to develop. Therefore, we support programs to make better use of existing strategies to improve TB control. Our grants in this area include:

• The Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS/TB Epidemic (CREATE), an alliance of researchers, clinicians, policy makers, AIDS/TB control programs, and communities working to improve TB control strategies in areas with high rates of HIV infection.
  
  
• Funding to the Chinese government, which is working to introduce TB diagnostic tests, drug regimens, and patient monitoring strategies that could significantly improve the effectiveness of TB control programs in China.

Raise public awareness and advocate for funding.

We support efforts to inform policy makers and the public about TB. We also work to encourage other funders to increase support for the fight against TB.