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| Wilson Works to Control Tuberculosis |
April 20, 2004 |
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House Subcommittee on Foreign Operations,
Export Financing and Related Programs
H-150 The Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Chairman Kolbe and Ranking Member Lowey:
We are writing today to thank you for your leadership on international Tuberculosis (TB) control and express our support for taking the next steps to conquer this deadly disease. With nine million new infectious TB cases and two million people dying needlessly from this airborne disease every year, TB is a public health issue in desperate need of attention. TB remains the greatest curable infectious killer on the planet and the number one killer of people with AIDS.
Tremendous apathy worldwide towards TB has made this curable disease the leading cause of infectious deaths. With $10 worth of drugs, a person sick with TB in a developing country can be cured and go on to live a normal life. Yet only one-third of those in the world who are sick with TB have access to effective DOTS treatment (the proven treatment for standard TB) and only a tiny fraction of those with drug resistant TB are receiving needed therapy. The TB-HIV co-epidemic has caused TB rates to skyrocket in many nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have rates of multi-drug resistant TB ten times the global average.
We are grateful for your FY 2004 bilateral appropriation for combating TB and your support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Given an estimated global funding gap of at least $1.1 billion annually for TB control, we ask that you continue your leadership in this area by increasing the FY 2005 appropriations to $350 million, including funding for bilateral sources and the Global Fund.
In addition to increasing the overall funding level for international TB control, we would like to ensure these monies are invested in the most effective way possible. The great majority of TB funding should be used to provide health worker training, patient support, and needed drugs and commodities to increase treatment coverage. Therefore, we ask that you to specify at least $20 million to go to the Global TB Drug Facility (GDF) in 2005. The GDF is a highly effective mechanism to provide high quality TB drugs to poor countries for just $10-11 per patient. Unfortunately, the GDF faces a critical funding shortage and cannot meet current commitments. The GDF needs $50 million annually to fully meet the needs of developing countries. In 2003, USAID provided just $3 million for the GDF.
We also urge priority funding be provided to the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, a non-profit, public-private partnership developing better, faster-acting and affordable drugs to treat TB. As the TB Alliance enters the next phase of drug development, greater and sustained resources are necessary to continue building a robust portfolio of compounds, to move lead projects towards regulatory approval, and to ensure affordability, adoption, and access. The financial support of the U.S. government will be critical to the sustainability and final success of the enterprise. A U.S. contribution of $3 million in FY 2005, and years following, would be an appropriate share of the global burden to discover and develop new effective treatments for TB.
Two million people needlessly lost their lives to TB last year. Accelerating our efforts to address this infectious killer is a moral imperative. We know what to do to cure TB. Now we must use our resources to directly increase the number of patients being treated and cured of TB so the greatest numbers of lives are saved. Thank you for your leadership and support for TB control, and for considering our request to expand TB funding to $350 million in the FY 2005 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill.
Sincerely,
Heather Wilson
Member of Congress |
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