Petition to BRICS countries to triple funding for TB R&D

>200 petition BRICS countries to triple funding for TB R&D to improve TB/AIDS and AMR response.

On 15 November 2016 over 200 petitioners from around the world asked Ministers of Health from the BRICS Nations to work with their governments to commit to triple funding for tuberculosis (TB) research.

BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are home to nearly half of all the world’s burden of TB, and have large economies. Yet these countries provide only 4 percent of the world's funding for TB research and development (R&D).

On the occasion of the 15-16 November 2016 BRICS workshops on TB/AIDS and Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) in Ahmadabad and Jaipur, respectively, and in anticipation of the 6th Meeting of the BRICS Health Ministers in New Delhi on 16 December 2016, petitioners asked BRICS leadership to deepen their resolve to fighting TB by committing to:

• include a TB R&D funding target of tripling national spending on TB R&D in the cooperation plan the BRICS health ministers will finalize in December;
• work with their countries’ Ministries of Science and Technology and Ministries of Finance to ensure that TB R&D is fully funded; and
• transparently report annual spending on TB R&D activities.

You can read the full petition and see who signed on here: http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/tb/brics