The World Health Organization estimates that if tuberculosis is left unchecked, it could kill more than 70 million people worldwide in the next 20 years and infect nearly a billion more, most of whom will go untreated. Tuberculosis represents the tragic failure to use medical advances for the wider benefit of humanity. Despite the explosion of scientific knowledge and techniques over the last two decades, the last new drug was developed more than 30 years ago. The vaccine we use today was developed in 1923. There is an urgent and immediate need for short and simple treatments.
Current treatments are long and cumbersome, with enormous labor costs for governments.
The treatment lasts six to eight months, but patients start to feel better quite early on and drop out too soon because of the heavy social and economic cost of treatment. Uncured, they pass the disease on to others. However, none of this concerns the pharmaceutical industry. Eager for a share of the lucrative Western markets, all efforts are concentrated on finding yet another drug for impotence or baldness. Unfortunately for the millions who die every year, tuberculosis is not a lucrative market.