The Union welcomes the statement from the 9th annual BRICS summit affirming a commitment to foster and promote R&D that will ensure access to quality, affordable medicines, and to support up-coming high level meetings on TB.
The Union welcomes the statement from the 9th annual BRICS summit (PDF 484 KB) affirming a commitment to foster and promote R&D that will ensure access to quality, affordable medicines, and to support up-coming high level meetings on tuberculosis (TB). The BRICS summit is being held in Xiamen, China from the 3-5 September.
The BRICS (Brazil, The Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa) group accounts for 46 percent of all incident cases of TB and 40 percent of all TB-related mortality; China and India together account for almost 40 percent of the estimated global burden of TB, while Brazil alone accounts for about a third of the western hemisphere’s estimated burdens of TB and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
South Africa accounts for 30 percent of the estimated global number of incident cases of tuberculosis–human immunodeficiency virus (TB-HIV) coinfection; China, India and the Russian Federation together account for more than half – 56 percent – of the estimated global burden of MDR-TB.
Despite the mounting costs of TB drug resistance and the pressing need for cost-effective new approaches, investments to develop new TB drugs and other tools declined to $620.6 million globally in 2015.
New tools and innovative approaches to financing the development of these tools, such as the 3P Project, are desperately needed.
The 3P Project is a new and innovative mechanism designed to incentivise and reward investments in order to streamline and accelerate the development of affordable drugs and treatments for TB.
The Union’s Grania Brigden, 3P project lead, said “The Union congratulates the support and engagement of the BRICS governments in the upcoming high level meetings on TB and welcomes the focus on R&D.
The Union hopes that their continued engagement on this important disease ensures the increased investment required to ensure that TB is no longer the world’s number one infectious disease killer.”
In the statement, the BRICS group also welcomes the decision to set up the TB Research Network, to be presented at the First WHO Global Ministerial Conference, Moscow, Russian Federation, 16-17 November 2017. The BRICS TB Research Network offers opportunities to build on the work already being done on TB and ensure that the high burden countries within the BRICS prioritise R&D for TB.
Read the full statement (PDF 484 KB)