Professor of Medicine, UCSF; Director, IGHS CGHDDE; former U.N. Secretary-General's Special Envoy on Tuberculosis; U.S. Ambassador-at-Large, PEPFAR (ret.)
TB is the world’s most lethal infectious disease, taking the lives of more people who are HIV positive than any other disease. No one is immune from TB. TB knows no borders.
Tuberculosis is the leading infectious disease killer in the world, taking the lives of 1.6 million people in 2017. The first-ever UN High-Level Meeting on TB will take place tomorrow, and I hope it leads to concrete actions to eliminate this deadly disease.
Today TB has come out of the shadows and into the spotlight. I applaud world leaders who have recognized that this number one infectious disease killer cannot be ignored any longer. 4,400 people dying each day is a wake-up call for the world to act.
Today world leaders will hold the first-ever high-level meeting on efforts to fight Tuberculosis, a leading cause of infectious disease-related deaths. The international community must do more to address this global epidemic & finally end TB. #UNGA#EndTB
We must move beyond the narrow view that TB is the problem of the world's poorest societies, and recognize that it is a universal health problem for an interdependent global population.
Eradicating TB - https://t.co/yXIrpZ2CcD - Dr. Michael A. Reid, Dr. Eric P. Goosby
Personally, I am tired that we have to fight for every nickel and dime we get for TB. I am tired of TB being the stepchild. And I know you are too. But we can’t give up on our fight.
For those of us who have participated in the U.N. High Level Meetings on AIDS, we have seen how bringing leaders together around one issue is a very powerful motivator for action. And there is no doubt action is needed now on TB.
No one is immune to TB. It is airborne, highly contagious and knows no borders. And with the growing challenge of MDR-TB or TB-HIV co-infection, TB could spread quickly with a tremendous impact on all Americans. In 2017, 97 cases of MDR-TB occurred in the United States.
We are at a moment. We have waited years – some of us decades – for this moment. Let us seize it and build a TB-free world once and for all. It’s TB’s time.