Global funding for tuberculosis (TB) research totaled just $915 million in 2020, which was less than half the goal of $2 billion set forth by participating country governments at the 2018 United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB. A new report – Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends, 2005–2020 – released on Thursday (December 09) by Treatment Action Group (TAG) and the Stop TB Partnership, found that TB funding has been flat since 2018, and in 2020 it received less than 1 percent of the amount invested in COVID-19 R&D, despite the fact that the toll it takes around the world is constantly rising. 

The report, which presented the latest data on 2020 funding for TB research and development (R&D) and analyzed trends in investment since 2005, said while TB was surpassed by COVID-19 as the world’s deadliest infectious disease last year, the disease still kills around 1.5 million people annually. Yet, the global response to the novel coronavirus – with unprecedented resources marshaled by public and private sectors to develop vaccines and therapeutics to curb the pandemic – serves as an example of what astonishing achievements are possible with enough political will, the report said.