Nick calls for funding of TB research & development to be restored

My Lords, I draw attention to my entries in the register as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Tuberculosis and chair of the Global TB Caucus.

After Covid, tuberculosis will still be here as the greatest killer among infectious diseases, as my noble friend Lord Fowler—whom I congratulate on securing this debate—said. It still kills 1.5 million people a year, quite unnecessarily. The sustainable development goal target 3.3 says that TB should be beaten by the year 2030, in just nine years’ time. On the current trajectory, it will be beaten in a century, over which period millions more people will lose their lives at huge economic cost to the world.

There are insufficient tools to beat tuberculosis. It should be capable of being beaten, since the accidental discovery of antibiotics over half a century ago, but in fact the resurgence of AIDS—TB is the single biggest killer of people with AIDS—has meant that it has flared up.

No epidemic in human history has been beaten without a vaccine. There is no effective adult vaccine for TB. The reason that the vaccine and the drugs have not been developed is that there is insufficient commercial incentive to do so. That means that public funding for these new tools is absolutely critical if we are to beat this disease. I regret that a consequence of the ODA cut has been that crucial funding directed to these new tools and the product development partnerships has been scaled back.

The next infection that comes along after Covid is likely to be airborne—a lung infection. We must have the resources to beat these diseases in future. That is why it is so important that we invest in the tools to beat these diseases, including tuberculosis. I hope that funding for these vital measures will be restored as soon as possible.