Chapal Mehra, Survivors Against TB

So let's talk a little bit about what are the key global goals for developing new TB tools. there are two resources that you should be familiar with in order to understand these goals. These are the "End TB Strategy" and the "Global Plan to End TB". The End TB strategy includes the big picture goals that need to be met in order to order to End TB. It has three key pillars and pillar 3 is to intensify research and innovation. Under that pillar, the strategy calls for an urgent boost in research investments. So that new tools are developed and made rapidly available and widely accessible. The second resource, the Global Plan to End TB lays out how we are going to get to End TB It is based on the End TB strategy and gets much more specific about the priority actions needed to deliver new TB tools. The latest Global Plan covers the years 2023 to 2030.

Lesson 8 lays out what kind of new tools that need to be developed. The actions that will speed up the time it takes to develop them and how much funding (this is critical) is needed to do it. Some of the goals that are critical and are very important to focus on include at least one new TB vaccine. this is a critical goal because it has the ability to transform our response to the TB epidemic, not just, in high burden countries, but also globally. The second is cheaper TB diagnostics that can be given at the point of care. This is extremely critical and medicines that can cure TB in less time than the treatments we have today. I would add to that, that medicines that have lesser side effects and are less painful to take than the current batch of medicines that we have from 2023 to 2030 the total funding needed for TB research and development is 40.2 billion USD I know this may sound a lot 40 billion, but it comes out to 5 billion a year between now and 2030 total for the whole world. It's not very much money.

Please think about the number of people we lose to a curable disease like TB every year and the kind of massive impact it would have on reducing human suffering loss to families, communities decreased morbidity, but also think of it as a return on investment and productivity across nations. Part of the reason it's 5 billion a year is because governments did not live up to their commitment to fund TB research over the last few years. In 2018, government gathered at the UN and pledged to mobilize $2 billion a year for TB research, but they didn't meet that commitment. And so the funding is still needed. Pause for a moment and think about how much funding, governments across the world have raised for COVID 19. This is one of the reasons that we need more people involved in advocacy to mobilize these resources.

If the funding continues to be delayed for another four years, the consequences will be enormous: an additional 3 million people will die. I repeat an additional 3 million people will die. Health systems will need to spend an additional $31 billion to take care for the additional people who will get sick with TB. Now contrast this to the fact that we need only $40 billion. If you are going to spend $31 billion as per projections, it should be a no brainer and economies will lose $487 billion almost half a trillion dollars because those people who are sick or who died from TV will no longer be contributing to the economies of their countries. This again, should be a no brainer in terms of return on investment. The global plan calls it the cost of inaction. It means that investing in new TB tools saves lives and it contributes to the global economy.

So let me end by reviewing a few concepts, which are particularly important, the End TB strategy and the Global Plan are critical in our efforts for advocacy because they lay out the goals for speeding up the development of new TB tools. If countries from around the world mobilize an average of 5 billion US dollars a year for research TB scientists can develop new tools that will help reduce TB debts by 90% by 2030. Let me end by saying that investing in TB is a no brainer and not investing in TB is inviting, suffering and inviting death into our communities, our countries, and globally. So when we think about advocacy, we must really think about the cost of inaction; the cost of not investing in TB and the repercussions it has on vulnerable. TB-affected communities and countries across the world. In the end, I would say that if you are planning and intend to work on, advocacy for new TB tools, please do review the End TB strategy and the Global Plan as they lay out the key goals for speeding up the development of new TB tools. These are critical guides on what we need to do.