TB hot spot Burma in dire need of TB drugs

Despite WHO calls that a new strain of TB is “potentially explosive”, Burma is in serious shortage of TB drugs and funding from current national supplier Global Fund Facility will run out at the end of this year. Along with other Asian countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and China, Burma is a WHO “high burden category”. Countries like China have received funding; the Gates Foundation has pumped US $33 million into a TB program in China. An estimated 1.5 percent of Burma’s 55.4 million population are infected by TB each year. Medecins Sans Frontieres is set up in parts of the country to assist, but they rely in part on drugs from the National TB Program, which receives drugs from GFF. Burmese health agencies were given a five year grant from GFF but this is not set to start until 2011, leaving Burma without any international funding for one year.

The challenges of treating TB in Burma - MSF, Reuters AlertNet
Advances made, but battle against TB not over yet, The Nation
Burma faces shortage of drugs in 2010, The Irrawaddy