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New Delhi, 30 January 2006 - The
United Kingdom, through its Department for International Development, plans
to spend an additional £41.7million to help fight tuberculosis in India. This was announced by Chancellor Gordon
Brown to the British Parliament on 27th January.
With 1.8 million new TB patients every year - accounting
for one fifth of all new cases worldwide - India has the greatest number of
people afflicted by the disease in the world.
TB continues to kill more people in India than any other infectious
cause of death.
The new funds come in addition to UK’s recent doubling of its
contribution to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, to
£100m per year for 2006 and 2007. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the
Stop TB Partnership will administer the funds in India.
Urging other donors to similarly increase their support, UK’s Secretary of State for International
Development, Hilary Benn said: “More
must be done to help reach the poor and underserved areas in India,
where more than 1,000 people die from TB every day. Together, we can do even
more to combat this disease that often drives families into poverty.”
This latest DFID funding for India will help procure anti-TB
drugs which will directly benefit over four million TB patients. It will also
support a five year plan to provide technical assistance through WHO to the
Government of India’s revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP). WHO is
already providing technical support to RNTCP in partnership with DFID, as
well as with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The Organization is committed to
continuing such support during Phase-II of RNTCP for the period 2006-2010.
Dr. Samlee Plianbangchang,
Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia
Region, welcoming this development,
said, “The rapid strides that the
Revised National TB Control Programme in India has made in recent years is
today driving global progress in TB control. I welcome this generous support
from the Department for International Development UK which is one of our key
partners in this Region. I view this as a sound investment in improving the
health of people across the globe.”
According to Dr. S.J. Habayeb,
WHO Representative to India,
“India has made remarkable
progress in expanding the internationally recommended DOTS strategy to 97% of
the country. The challenge is to sustain good quality services, widen the
reach through involvement of a wider network of health care providers, and
deal with newer challenges posed by TB/HIV co-infection and drug resistance.”
Notes to Editors
India
currently has the highest burden of TB in the world. Globally, 8.8 million
new cases of TB occur annually, of which 1.8 million (one fifth) occur in India.
About 40% of the adult population in India is estimated to be already
infected with the TB bacteria. About 10% of those infected may develop the
disease in their life time. This risk is significantly increased if the
person is co-infected with HIV.
Despite a recent decline in deaths, the mortality remains substantial.
In addition, the disease causes enormous social and economic losses.
Early detection with effective treatment of infectious TB
cases is currently the only way to control TB.
UK
contributes to TB control through advocacy at country level, strengthening of
health services, through financial resources to the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and through core funding to WHO
and to the Stop TB Partnership.
The Global Fund provides 66% of external funding for TB
control. In September, UK
doubled its contribution to the fund for 2006 and 2007, and will provide £100
million in each year. In March 2005 UK committed £5 million over
three years to the Stop TB Partnership.
The Stop TB Partnership estimated that $56 billion over
the next decade will be needed globally to help tackle TB. It believes that
40% of the additional funding needs to come from G8 countries and other
donors.
For more information visit www.dfid.gov.uk, www.tbcindia.org, and www.stoptb.org;
Mrs. Harsaran Bir Kaur Pandey, Public Information and
Advocacy Officer, SEARO, New Delhi, India, Tel: +91 11 233 70971, Email: pandeyh@searo.who.int;
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