Looking for new funding models to address an ancient problem

The global tuberculosis response has consistently suffered funding shortages, which contributed to the disease surpassing AIDS in 2014 as the world’s leading infectious killer. Now — in a bid to end the pandemic by 2035 — a new strategy is looking to alternative funding sources and new spending models that will help officials better take advantage of the available resources.

At least 9.6 million people fell ill with TB in 2014, according to the World Health Organization. And though the disease in its most common form is treatable with a six-month daily drug regimen, it nonetheless claimed the lives of 1.5 million of those patients.

This high number of deaths continues “even though we have had the disease for such a long time, we know how to cure it — and it’s cheap,” said Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership.