Abstract
When 2020 opened, approximately 11 million new tuberculosis (TB) cases and nearly 1.5 million TB-related deaths were predicted during the year. And, the gap between required and available research and development resources for TB was estimated at more than 1 billion USD. COVID-19, the global pandemic of disease caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has surely widened that gap by worsening the TB pandemic. Worryingly, the economic devastation wrought by COVID-19 portends further dramatic reductions in funds for other health research, including for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Such constraints will prevent the use of extant TB research infrastructure to support cross-disease benefits in the struggle against COVID-19 and future pandemics.
