Lilly: Partnering to Stop TB

Today’s guest blog comes from Sunita Prasad, senior manager for Lilly’s MDR-TB programs in India.

March 24 was World TB Day – the time each year when people around the world focus their attention on an airborne disease that continues to cause needless suffering and death around the world but especially in countries like mine – India.

Last week I took part in the Second Forum of the National Stop TB Partnership meeting in Jakarta where 14 countries were represented. The point of the meeting was to discuss ways that partners – public and private sector organizations as well as NGOs – can engage to speed progress toward stopping TB.  To be sure, there has been progress already.  In the past 15 years, global deaths caused by TB have fallen but there are still more than 1.3 million deaths every year. At the current pace of a 2 percent decline in annual incidence of TB, we will need another 170 years to fully stop TB.  With nearly a quarter of global TB cases occurring in India, the urgency is obvious to me every day.

To learn more about how the private sector can help in the fight against TB, read our blog.