I'm really happy that you're all drawing attention to tuberculosis, because it has been around for such a long time that it doesn't have this sense of emergency, such as HIV/AIDS has had, or now all this talk about Ebola and Zika. Sometimes they forget the chronic emergencies that have happened for a long time, and TB is probably the most important of those.
TB is a disease that is affecting the poorest and the most vulnerable around the world. Now, who those poorest and most vulnerable are might differ from country to country. You mentioned, and we discussed it a little bit, the particular challenge of TB in prisons, but you know I also mentioned the particular challenge of TB in the mining industry. TB affects miners disproportionately because of their living and working conditions. TB is generally associated with how and where people live, and how and where people work. To address that you need to design specific programs.
We now have special programs for TB in the mining industry, particularly in southern Africa and in the communities in which the mines operate. We've also had some programs in many countries, particularly in eastern Europe and central Asia, for TB in the prisons. We call prisons the breeding ground for resistance, because it's particularly in prisons where people are poorly treated, often insufficiently or incorrectly treated, and that's exactly what leads to the very dangerous multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.
You can address that only if you support those countries and encourage them to invest particularly in health care in the prisons. It's possible, but it's a conscious decision, and often the government.... You will understand that prisoners are hardly constituents that matter for many politicians, but they matter when you want to address this disease.
We have a number of examples of where this has been addressed specifically through program support by the Global Fund, also in eastern Europe, also in the Russian Federation, because that is where you have the most dangerous forms of the multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.