Africa: Where every day is TB day

While welcoming the annual upsurge in international conferences, media stories and web traffic to tuberculosis portals for World TB Day on 24 March, scientists worldwide say every day is TB (tuberculosis) day for them as they race to find a vaccine that can stay head of growing drug resistance and boost a near century-old only partially-effective vaccine, according to World Health Organization (WHO).

Deadly underdog

Despite interest from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the public-private donor Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the US-based Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation told IRIN tuberculosis is still a funding underdog.

“People largely think it is disease of the past,” said an Aeras director, Peg Willingham. “When antibiotics became available in the 1960s, TB was considered as having been eliminated as an important health problem in the United States, which is a huge drug market for pharmaceuticals. That left little financial incentive for pharmaceuticals to invest in research.”

When private interest slumped, governments and donors increased support to non-profit organisations. The Gates Foundation has funded 52 projects over the past decade worth $743 million, $300 million of which went to Aeras.

Read the full article here http://www.IRINnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83637.