Rosario Aquino gives the melted chocolate a final stir before pouring the molten liquid into moulds to cool and set. She won’t eat the chocolates herself – they’re her livelihood.

Rosario is a TB patient who started a micro-business making and selling ‘chocotejas’ – a chocolate-covered caramel popular in Lima. She’s one of hundreds of grandes empresarios or entrepreneurs who have been given help in starting a micro-business to regain their health and their self-reliance.

Because TB preys on people with particular immune deficiencies associated with poor diet or prior illness, fighting the disease in many cases also involves fighting poverty.

The grandes empresarios of Lima are people with limited access to income through formal employment. Micro-loans through the Global Fund provide the seed capital for collectives to get started in a small business, allowing patients to remain independent in the face of adversity. Micro-loans help put food on the table and get people going again after being infected with TB.

Rosario who uses a wheelchair smiles at every opportunity and counts her blessings. “It has changed my life. I was so sick I could barely move. I had no money to buy food. Nothing. My friends and I can make 50 percent in profits and can put some food on our tables. We have learned that if we eat well we can fight TB better. I am lucky, I am blessed,” she says, smiling.

Peru has the largest Global Fund-supported TB program in the region tailored to respond to the challenges of poverty. One out of every three Peruvians receives social assistance in the form of basic foodstuffs, temporary work or housing. The incidence of new TB cases has steadily declined but the disease continues to pose a public health problem.