Tuberculosis (TB) is the world’s deadliest infectious disease, causing over 1.2 million deaths globally in 2024. Despite being preventable and curable, TB remains a persistent, evolving threat that demands urgency, collaboration, innovation and smart investment.
As external resources decline and financial pressures grow, ending TB as a public health threat depends on strong country leadership – an approach that will deliver faster and more sustainable progress. This transition from external funding support to self-reliance must be coordinated carefully – it is a pathway, not a switch.
Innovation is one of the most powerful levers to end TB. New diagnostics, shorter and more effective treatment regimens, and AI-enabled digital X-rays are transforming the fight against TB. But innovation alone does not save lives, it must also reach the people most at risk.
The Global Fund is working with partners to maximize access and uptake and ensure new tools translate into real world impact.
Yes! We can end TB – by backing country-led responses, scaling innovation and maximizing the impact of every dollar. Led by countries. Powered by innovation.
Innovation, Access and Impact: Accelerating the Fight to End TB
New technologies — from rapid molecular diagnostics and AI-enabled X-ray detection, to shorter, all-oral treatment regimens — are transforming what’s possible in the fight against, tuberculosis (TB), the world’s deadliest infectious disease claiming more than 1.2 million lives each year. Today, the challenge is no longer innovation alone.
A New Front Line: How AI and Other Innovations are Transforming the Fight Against TB
There’s no shortage of hype about AI in health care, but in the fight against tuberculosis (TB), AI is already powering a revolution. Handheld digital X-ray devices use AI to stabilize the image. AI analysis of X-ray results enable high volume, high-quality screening for TB cases in even the poorest, most difficult contexts where doctors are in short supply and radiologists nonexistent. This isn’t some vision of the future, but already reality in over 22 countries where the Global Fund invests in TB programs.
How One Country Is Turning the Tide Against an Ancient Killer
On his coffee farm in rural East Java, Indonesia, Pak Jun developed a persistent cough. He was nauseous, dizzy and unable to eat. When his condition failed to improve, Pak Jun’s family took him to the local puskesmas, or health center, for a check-up. Then the diagnosis of drug-resistant tuberculosis came: “I was shocked,” he says.
How AI Is Accelerating the Fight Against an Ancient Killer
Tuberculosis (TB) remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease – an ancient killer that still claims over a million lives each year, mostly among the world’s poorest and hardest-to-reach. Yet we are on the brink of a new era of progress in the fight against the disease. This transformation is driven by a range of innovations, including artificial intelligence (AI).