LONDON (Reuters) - The governments of Britain, the Netherlands and Ireland said on Tuesday they were giving $14.2 million (8 million pounds) to help pay for research into new tuberculosis drugs in a bid to kick-start funding for the neglected disease.
Tuberculosis, or TB, has reached alarming proportions in Africa and other poor countries, where co-infection with HIV/AIDS makes a deadly combination. One person dies of the disease every 15 seconds.
Britain is providing 6.5 million pounds ($11.4 million) over three years, while the Netherlands is contributing 2 million euros ($1.4 million pounds) and Ireland 300,000 euros to the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development.
The non-profit organisation was created in 2000 to work on a new generation of TB medicines, replacing ones that were first developed in the 1940s.
New treatments are badly needed, because strains of TB are now circulating that are resistant to existing drugs. There has has been little incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in anti-TB products since most cases occur in poor countries.
The TB Alliance currently has 10 compounds in development and recently launched a partnership with Germany's Bayer to test an approved antibiotic, moxifloxacin.
If successful, a new treatment regimen using moxifloxacin may be available by 2010 and reduce treatment time by two to three months from its current duration of six to nine months.
The World Health Organisation launched a new TB action plan in January, with the goal of treating 50 million people and preventing 14 million deaths worldwide over the next 10 years.
But full implementation of that plan will cost an estimated $56 billion over the next decade, including $47 billion for controlling the disease and $9 billion for research into new drugs and vaccines, the organisation said.