TB Bill Passes!

The Brown-Durbin-Brownback-Boxer amendment to increase TB funding passed the Senate yesterday as part of the FY08 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill.

The amendment would provide an additional $90 million in funding, bringing the U.S. total investment for TB assistance to $200 million!

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH):

“Tuberculosis kills 1.6 million people a year in developing countries…Unchecked, drug resistant TB, including deadly XDR-TB, threatens to reverse progress made against AIDS and TB worldwide. In today’s world, extensively drug-resistant TB poses a grave public health threat never more than a plane ride away.”