Nils Billo, executive director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, on Monday at the close of the 38th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town, South Africa, called for increasing efforts on tuberculosis research and drug development, Independent Online reports.
It is 'urgent' to find new drugs and develop new vaccines for TB, and it is a 'scandal that governments are not putting more money into' TB treatment research, he said.He added that 'one of the reasons' TB research has received less attention than other diseases is it is a 'disease of the poor' and 'companies hesitate to invest in drug development' in developing countries.
According to Billo, HIV/AIDS and TB treatment programs should be administered together, and those who have one disease should routinely be tested for the other.
'I think that is a very important point that has not yet been implemented programmatically in most of the countries,' he said.
Source-Kaiser Family Foundation
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