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TB a 'forgotten threat', MP warns

13/05/2008

Parliamentarians and the wider public are in danger of underestimating the global threat posed by tuberculosis (TB), an MP has warned.

David Lepper, the Labour and Cooperative MP for Brighton Pavilion, is highlighting the disease's danger with an exhibition in the Houses of Parliament this week.

There are nine million new cases of the disease around the world every year, resulting in the deaths of over two million people, and numbers have been on the rise since 1987.

TB had been eradicated in the UK but it is now making a comeback, leading Mr Lepper to seek greater attention for the disease among ordinary Britons and parliamentarians.

"My concern is that we all know about the dangers of HIV/Aids and the importance of dealing with it" Mr Lepper told politics.co.uk.

"I'm glad that there is the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria which sees all three of them as needing attention, but I do think some of the discussion tends to forget about TB sometimes.

"This may partly be because, until quite recently, TB was history in our own country."

Mr Lepper, whose constituency is a base for campaign groups Target Tuberculosis and TB Alert, called on the government to maintain its current high levels of commitment to TB on the issues.

He claimed the government is one of the largest international funders for anti-TB initiatives but added more could be done to press the issue.

"There are always questions about providing more funding, more support… that will always be the case."

Mr Lepper's exhibition is on show in the House of Commons' upper waiting hall until Friday.