UK pledges millions to fight TB in India

The government is to contribute ?41.7 million to help fight tuberculosis (TB) in India, chancellor Gordon Brown told the Commons yesterday.

Mr Brown’s statement to MPs was made ahead of today’s launch of the ?3.14 billion Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis is a project to triple spending to fight TB in the next decade.

At the World Economic Forum, Mr Brown is set to meet Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank president, U2 rock star and third world debt campaigner Bono, and billionaire Bill Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In Davos, he will outline the progress of his brainchild, the international finance facility, a scheme which raises cash through capital markets to pay for vaccine research and vaccination.

It is estimated ?3 billion is needed to fight TB globally.

Campaigners say the lethal disease claims the lives of two million people a year, equivalent to one person every 15 seconds.

India alone has 15 million TB patients, one third of the world’s cases.

Mr Brown told MPs if world governments failed to redouble efforts to combat the spread of the disease, an estimated one billion people could be infected by 2020 and 36 million people worldwide could die.

The chancellor has also said he would urge G8 finance ministers meeting in Moscow next month to expand the debt relief deal made last year to some of the world’s poorest nations.

Mr Brown added that last year’s Make Poverty History campaign was not just a passing fad but “a commitment for our generation”.

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