Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends 2005 – 2020

December 9, 2021 – Global funding for tuberculosis (TB) research hit $915 million in 2020, but still amounts to less than half the annual goal of $2 billion set by member states at the United Nations (UN) High-Level Meeting on the Fight to End TB in 2018, per a new report released today by Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Stop TB Partnership. The report, Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends 2005–2020, presents new data on 2020 funding and analyzes trends since 2005. While TB has ceded its position as the world’s deadliest infectious disease to COVID-19, it continues to kill 1.5 million people each year.

This year’s report reveals that the coronavirus does not appear to have affected TB research funding, even as local TB programs weathered serious damage. But investments from governments, philanthropies and pharmaceutical companies have remained flat since 2018, which contrasts dramatically with their historic mobilization of resources against COVID-19.