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Press Release
27 January 2006
UK Increase commitment to fighting Tuberculosis in India by £41.7m
An additional £41.7m UK funds to help fight the devastating burden of
tuberculosis (TB) in India has been made available, Secretary of State for
International Development Hilary Benn announced today.
With 1.8 million new TB patients every year - accounting for one fifth of all
cases worldwide - India has the greatest number of people infected with the
disease in the world and it continues to kill more people there than any other
infectious cause of death.
The new funds come in addition to the UK’s recent doubling of its contribution
to the
Global Fund To Fight AIDS, TB
& Malaria (GFATM), to £100m per year for 2006 and 2007.
TheWorld Health Organisation (WHO) andStop TB Partnership will administer the
funds in India.
Urging other donors to similarly increase their support Hilary Benn said:
“More must be done to help reach the poor and underserved areas in India, where
more than 1,000 people die from TB every day. Together we can do even more to
combat this disease that often drives families into poverty.”
This latest DFID funding for India will help procure anti-TB drugs which will
directly benefit over four million TB patients. It will also support a five year
plan to provide technical support through the WHO to the Government of India’s
revisedNational TB Control
Programme (RNTCP).
Separately, a new £5m DFID fund for research into health policy and systems that
work to the benefit of the poor, often utilising simple solutions, is awarded to
theAlliance for Health
Policy and Systems Research, a network working under the WHO umbrella.
Currently just 5% of research conducted worldwide on health policy and systems
focuses on the problems of low and middle income countries and many simple life
saving technologies remain inaccessible to poor populations there.
Notes for Editors:
- TB remains one of the world's deadliest killers, with approximately 2
million people dying from the disease every year - or one person every 15
seconds. And the numbers are increasing - with more than 8 million people
becoming sick with TB each year. It is estimated that, if TB controls aren't
strengthened an estimated one billion people will be newly infected between
now and 2020 - and 36 million will die.
- Each year nearly 1.8 million new cases occur in India, of which nearly
800,000 are infectious. Tuberculosis kills more people in India and
throughout the South-East Asia Region than any other infectious disease -
more than HIV/AIDS, STDs, malaria, and tropical diseases combined.
- The UK contributes to TB control through advocacy at country level,
strengthening of health services, through funding of the Global Fund To
Fight AIDS, TB & Malaria (GFATM), and through our core funding to WHO and to
the Stop TB Partnership.
- The GFATM provides 66% of external funding for TB. In September, the UK
doubled its contribution to the fund for 2006 and 2007, and will provide
£100 million in each year. In March 2005 the UK committed £5 million over
three years to the Stop TB Partnership.
- The Stop TB Partnership estimates an estimated $56 billion over the next
decade will be needed to help tackle TB. It believes that 40% of the
additional funding needs to come from G8 countries and other donors.
- The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research incorporates a
partnership of developing country researchers and research users, helps
build country capacity to conduct research, and supports the development of
new knowledge, knowledge synthesis, and its application to policy. It is an
initiative originally fostered by theGlobal Forum
for Health Research and now administered by the World Health
Organization in collaboration with the Global Forum.
For further information, contact 020 7023 0600, e-mail
pressoffice@dfid.gov.uk or call our
Public Enquiries Point on 0845 300 4100.
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