Tuberculosis funding by European Commission

On 2 December, the European Commission (EC) announced that the European Union (EU) institutions will support the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria with €370 million for the period 2014-2016. The pledge was announced by European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs. The Global Fund is the single largest and most important international donor for TB, providing almost 90 percent of all international financing for TB programmes.

Previously, 67 health civil society organizations called on the Global Fund’s continued support to countries with growing HIV, TB and malaria epidemics. One of these societies was the TB Europe Coalition, an advocacy alliance that commits to raising awareness of TB and to increase the political will to control the disease throughout the WHO Europe Region and worldwide. In 2012, it was estimated that 74,000 cases of Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR-TB) occurred in the WHO European Region.

Tuberculosis is a contagious airborne disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which infects one third of the world’s population.

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