Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure TB is eradicated globally by 2030 in line with SDG 3.3.2.

The World Health Organisation's 2022 Global Tuberculosis Report estimates that 10.6 million people fell ill with TB in 2021, a 4.5 per cent increase from the previous year. The number of people dying from TB rose from 1.5 to 1.6 million, the second successive yearly rise. The report also shows a 3 per cent increase in the burden of drug-resistant TB (DR-TB), with 450,000 new cases of rifampicin-resistant TB (RR-TB) in 2021. These increases follow many years of sustained progress to reduce the burden of TB and reflect the impact of COVID-19 on country health systems.

The UK Government supports the World Health Organisation's End TB strategy towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 3.3 target to end the epidemic of tuberculosis by 2030. The UK's £1 billion pledge for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria's seventh replenishment will help the Global Fund and its partners provide TB treatment and care for 1.1 million people, screen 20 million people for TB, and provide 42,000 people with treatment for multidrug-resistant TB. In addition to this the Government also supports research and development in to new tools, evidence and medicine to combat TB; catalytic interventions to bring down prices of new products and tackle barriers to widespread access to TB diagnostics and treatments; and provides bilateral support to TB endemic countries to strengthen their health systems.