14 November 2005

L. Masae Kawamura, M.D.
Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Tuberculosis (ACET) Chairperson
Director, TB Control Section
San Francisco Department of Public Health
San Francisco General Hospital, CA-94110

Dear Dr. Kawamura:

The Treatment Action Group (TAG) is a community-based organization that works to accelerate and intensify research to improve treatment and find a cure for AIDS and ensure that all people living with HIV receive the necessary treatment, care, and information they need to save lives. As HIV activists and as advocates committed to social justice we are greatly concerned about the increase in TB globally, the 2 million deaths it causes despite being a treatable disease, as well as its emergence as a leading cause of death amongst PLWHA.

Currently there are an unprecedented number of new TB drug candidates in the pipeline. In order to study them effectively and efficiently, there is a need to scale up treatment trial capacity to ensure that the promise of these drugs is fulfilled in the form of more potent and shorter treatment regimens. Besides treatment there is also an urgent need to increase accuracy of TB diagnostics, especially for sputum smear negative and extra pulmonary TB cases.

TAG is submitting this letter to urge ACET and CDC Division of TB Elimination to aggressively push for increased funding levels for TB research, especially in the critical areas of new diagnostics and new drugs to ensure TB is diagnosed more accurately and more rapidly, and to prove effective new shorter treatment regimens which are less toxic, can be used with antiretrovirals (ARVs), and can be used for treatment of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB. According to best estimates, $33 million will be needed next year to scale up the requisite clinical trials infrastructure; indeed, the New Drugs Working Group of the Global Stop TB Partnership recommends that up to $6 billion over the next ten years will be required to validate these new TB drugs and regimens. TAG recommends that this amount be fully funded and we look forward to working with ACET to take up this advocacy further through a meeting with Dr. Julie Gerberding in conjunction with other TB advocates and researchers.

Along with this letter, we are also submitting a statement for the record that TAG had prepared with the endorsement of over 100 TB advocates and organizations. This statement was presented at the 36th International Union Against TB and Lung Disease (IUATLD) World Congress on Lung Health, in Paris, France, on the 23rd of October 2005, and outlines the advocacy demands that we see as vital to effectively stop the suffering and deaths caused by this preventable and curable disease.

Sincerely,

Attachment: Towards a Revolution in Tuberculosis (TB) Prevention, Care and Treatment