Wednesday 26 / March / 2025
Geneva: A drastic drop in development aid funding is threatening success in the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease, tuberculosis (TB), according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
In a WHO report released today, the UN health agency said that TB still kills around 1.5 million people every year.
Seventy-nine million lives have been saved through early diagnosis and treatment since the year 2000. But without more money, things look bleak for the poorest countries, the WHO said in the report published to mark World Tuberculosis Day.
The United States has frozen billions of dollars in various aid funds. But other countries, such as the United Kingdom in 2025 and Germany in 2024, have also announced cuts in development aid.
The WHO reports that TB programmes are at risk of collapsing in 27 countries. Without the funds from abroad, fewer people will be tested, fewer cases recognized and treated and the spread monitored less. As a result, more people become infected.
Nine countries are already having problems obtaining medicines.
As early as 2023, only a quarter of the $22 billion in funding required to fight TB was available, according to the WHO.
