Gates triples TB eradication funds to $900m

Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates today said his charitable foundation would triple its funding for tuberculosis eradication from $300m (€245.7m) to $900m (€737m) by 2015.

The effort is part of a larger campaign announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to stop tuberculosis worldwide.

The disease claimed 1.6 million lives in 2005.

The announcement came as Nigerian President Olusegun Obsanjo, British Chancellor Gordon Brown and Gates called for help to treat 50 million people and prevent 14 million TB deaths globally in the next 10 years.

The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis was formed by the Stop Tuberculosis Partnership, a group of 400 organisations.