World TB Day 2025: Open letter to the UK Government
We are urging the UK Government to remain committed to the global fight against one of the world's most deadly diseases, and to reverse the devastating cuts to UK aid.
Monday 24 March 2025
Dear Sir Keir Starmer PM,
On this World TB Day, we urge you to remain committed to the fight to end tuberculosis (TB). TB is a persistent and deadly disease that kills 1.25 million people every year – more than any other infectious disease.
Despite being preventable and treatable, over eight million people are diagnosed with TB each year, including hundreds of thousands with drug-resistant forms of the disease.
We urgently call on the UK Government to reverse its decision to cut aid, so that the UK can play its part in tackling pressing global health challenges, including TB.
The proposed cuts to international aid will devastate global progress towards ending TB. People living in fragile and conflict-affected settings will be disproportionately affected, as TB care and treatment in countries such as Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Syria heavily rely on aid funding.
“In the face of ever increasing rates of TB, including drug-resistant forms, this is not the moment to renege on the UK’s commitments to tackle this disease”
TB services are also particularly reliant on the Global Fund, which accounts for 76 percent of all worldwide TB funding.
As a medical and humanitarian organisation, MSF has been involved in providing TB care for over three decades, treating more than 22,000 people each year. Often working alongside national health authorities, we diagnose and treat patients in complex settings including conflict zones, refugee camps and prisons.
Progress towards tackling this deadly and persistent disease will be stalled if ambitions and commitments to tackle TB are scaled back, with rapid and devastating impacts.
In Uzbekistan, for example, we are already seeing people with forms of TB that are resistant to almost all medicines. These incurable forms of TB devastate the lives and livelihoods of those affected and their families, and risk being transmitted more widely.
In the face of ever increasing rates of TB, including drug-resistant forms, this is not the moment to renege on the UK’s commitments to tackle this disease.
As recently as September 2023, the UK agreed to intensify efforts to end TB by 2030 as part of the UN political declaration on TB. Global commitments are already falling hugely short of what is needed; it is unfathomable how much worse this situation will get following drastic cuts to international aid, and how many millions more people will die needlessly as a result.
The UK has a critical opportunity to demonstrate its continued commitment to TB and global health more broadly when co-hosting the Global Fund Replenishment later this year.
No host country has ever reduced its pledge from the previous replenishment; please don’t be the first to do so.
The UK must reverse the aid cuts and stand strong in its commitment to addressing global health challenges, including the global fight against TB.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Matthew Coldiron
Director of Medical and Research Unit (Manson Unit, MSF UK) and Deputy Medical Director (MSF Amsterdam)
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) UKCC:
Rt Hon David Lammy MP, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (FCDO)
Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State (International Development, Latin America and Caribbean), Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
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MSF and TB
MSF has been fighting TB for decades. We provide treatment for the disease in many different contexts, from remote communities in South Sudan, to vulnerable patients in places like Uzbekistan.
In 2023, MSF started 25,377 people on TB treatment.