Tuberculosis is the world’s leading treatable infectious killer, with more than 14 million sufferers, one-third of whom aren’t even diagnosed. At current treatment rates the global TB epidemic will continue for another 150 years, with an estimated 28 million deaths and a cost of $1 trillion in the next decade alone.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. The upcoming United Nations high-level meeting on TB is a chance to show the same success with TB as it did with HIV/AIDS.
There is so much wrong in today’s world, so much we seem powerless to change. But we eliminated smallpox because it was the right thing to do, we halved the deaths by HIV/AIDS in under six years, and we can eliminate TB as well.
The Trudeau Liberals must make a forceful push at the UN high-level meeting to ensure that finally, at last, the world ends the TB scourge.
Jeanette Aubin
