World TB Day: Aeras releases new animated video to help raise awareness about TB

Aeras, a non-profit biotechnology organization developing new tuberculosis (TB) vaccines for the world, is launching a new 90-second animated video in honor of World TB Day to help raise awareness about TB’s devastating toll and the need for new tools, including vaccines, to fight this epidemic. In its latest annual report on TB, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the epidemic caused 9.6 million illnesses and 1.5 million deaths in 2014.

World TB Day has been commemorated on March 24 every year since 1982. But this year’s event is different, according to Aeras CEO Jacqueline E. Shea, Ph.D. “In September of last year, the United Nations endorsed its new Sustainable Development Goals, which include a target to end the TB epidemic by 2030,” said Dr. Shea. “A new, effective and affordable TB vaccine is one of the keys to realizing that goal.”

The WHO and other key stakeholders agree that treatment alone will not end the TB epidemic. “The world desperately needs new tools to bring an end to the world wide suffering caused by TB,” said Dr. Shea. “Yet funding for TB research and development falls far short of what is needed.”

Aeras is urging people around the world to share the video on social media to help draw public attention to this neglected disease and the urgent need for better drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines.