Gates triples TB eradication funds

The Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates today said his charitable foundation would triple its funding for tuberculosis eradication from 300 million dollars to 900 million dollars (£504million) by 2015.

The effort is part of a larger campaign announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to stop tuberculosis worldwide.

The disease claimed 1.6 million lives in 2005.

The announcement came as the Nigerian President Olusegun Obsanjo, the UK Chancellor Gordon Brown and Gates called for help to treat 50 million people and prevent 14 million TB deaths globally in the next 10 years.

The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis was formed by the Stop Tuberculosis Partnership, a group of 400 organisations.

"I welcome the Gates Foundation's announcement today. For far too long, world leaders have ignored the global tuberculosis epidemic, even as it causes millions of needless deaths each year," said Mr Brown.