March 2016

Also this week, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) authored "Dear Colleague" letters in the Senate in support of increased global and domestic tuberculosis funding. The global TB letter urges the Senate State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee to provide the TB community's funding recommendation of $400 million for the U.S. Agency for International Development's TB program. The domestic letter urges the Senate Labor-Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations subcommittee to provide $243 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's TB program. Both letters call for implementation of the President's National Action Plan to Combat Multi-Drug Resistant TB, released in December 2015, which aims to reduce MDR-TB in the U.S. and abroad, and accelerate TB research and development.

Efforts to support domestic and global TB control are also ongoing in the House of Representatives. TB Elimination Caucus co-chairs Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Gene Green (D-TX) and Don Young (R-AK) are sponsoring letters supporting global and domestic TB control. The House global TB letter has secured 67 signors. The House domestic letter, being finalized early next week, has so far secured 22 signors.