\n<\/p>\n
Tuberculosis is the world\u2019s most deadly infectious disease, killing more than a million people a year and infecting many millions more, even though treatment in the form of antibiotics has existed for seventy years. TB predominantly affects the poor in the Global South. As Paul Farmer<\/a> wrote in Infections and Inequalities<\/em> (1999), \u2018the \u201cforgotten plague\u201d was forgotten in large part because it ceased to bother the wealthy.\u2019 <\/p>\n The work to end the world\u2019s oldest pandemic needs funding to pay for drug regimens that are effective against multidrug-resistant strains of TB; for rapid molecular tests to allow people to be diagnosed faster and more easily at the point of care; to undertake research and development, such as for new vaccines; Ending the TB epidemic by 2030 is one of the sustainable development goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015, and recent years have seen an increase in both attention and political will, but far more still needs to be done to address both the medical solutions and the structural inequality that allows TB to thrive. <\/p>\n The task has been made a lot harder by the collapse of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)<\/a>. In January, the Trump administration ordered a stop to all global health funding, with some emergency humanitarian waivers later issued (and then revoked) for lifesaving medicines and medical devices. <\/p>\n What was billed as a ninety-day freeze to undertake a review ended last week in the formal termination of thousands of projects across the world, including HIV treatment programmes that supported millions of people, malaria control programmes in some of the worst hit African countries, and TB programmes that provided lifesaving care. In all, 90 per cent of USAID\u2019s grants have been terminated. <\/p>\n