Tuberculosis (TB) is the world's most deadly infectious disease killer, claiming nearly 2 million lives in 2017. Despite this, TB is considered to be a neglected tropical disease, a category which in total receives only 1 percent of all research and development funds. As a result, though inexpensive treatment options exist, TB is widely underfunded and under-resourced, contributing to the rise of multi-drug resistant and extremely-drug resistant strains which know no borders. Already, completely resistant (XXDR) strains have been identified to which there are no cure. By 2050 an estimated 75 million people will die of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extremely-drug resistant (XDR) TB - nearly 9 times the population of NYC.

Not only are MDR and XDR-TB preventable public health threats which, unaddressed, will take millions of lives, they are also poised to absorb millions of dollars from healthcare systems around the world, a reality which the United States is already intimately familiar. Between 2005 and 2007, 364 cases of MDR-TB and 9 cases of XDR-TB cost the US healthcare system $53 million in direct costs, and the US economy $100 million including productivity loss. An investment of $130 million additional USD in TB prevention, treatment, and programming as per the State and Foreign Operations Sub-committees in the United States Federal Budget will not only save the US millions of dollars in the long term, it will also preserve millions of lives around the world.

Now is the time to act. Sign here in support of $130 million additional USD to be allocated to TB programming to stop the next greatest epidemic in its tracks.