Blog posts comment on World TB Day

Several blog posts recently commented on the upcoming World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, commemorated on March 24. "Despite a clear legislative mandate, the U.S. Global Health Initiative (GHI) has consistently failed to live up to the goals of" the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria Reauthorization Act, passed by Congress in 2008, John Fawcett, legislative director for RESULTS, writes in the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog. He continues, "Current GHI TB treatment goals are less than 60 percent of what was mandated in the Lantos-Hyde Act," and concludes, "As the final authorized fiscal year of the Lantos-Hyde Act is debated, there's still time to embrace its mandate: a bold effort to confront the world's leading curable infectious killer" (Mazzotta, 3/22). "As people across the globe celebrate World TB Day this week, several groups are highlighting the fact that the current tools to prevent, test, and treat tuberculosis (TB) are greatly outdated," Ashley Bennett, senior policy associate at the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), writes in the GHTC "Breakthroughs" blog. She commends GHTC members for their efforts to develop new technologies (3/22).