Innovation to Tackle World's Second-Deadliest Disease

Anowara Upazilla, Bangladesh - This Saturday is International Health Day, a good time to focus on tuberculosis (TB), the world's second largest global killer after HIV/AIDS. In 2010, 8.8 million people fell ill with TB, and 1.4 million died from the disease. Tuberculosis is a global disease, but rates of infection and death are much higher in poor, crowded countries. South Asian nations report some of the highest rates of TB in the world. Last year, I had the opportunity to see how the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria—which works closely with the United Nations and other international donors—was supporting TB programs in Bangladesh.