Mr. Speaker, today is World Tuberculosis Day, and this year's theme is “Reach the 3 million”. While TB is curable, current efforts to find, treat, and cure everyone who gets the disease are not sufficient. Of the nine million people a year who get sick with TB, three million are missed by health systems.
Many of these three million people live in the world's poorest, most vulnerable communities, or are among marginalized populations such as indigenous peoples, internally displaced persons, and refugees.
Let us work to overcome today's TB challenges: treating the three million people missed by health systems; slow progress in tackling multi-drug resistant TB; and increased and prompt delivery of antiretroviral therapy for TB patients living with HIV.
Let us ensure that TB REACH, an initiative of the Stop TB Partnership, is funded, and that everyone suffering from TB has access to diagnosis, treatment, and cure.