The WHO End TB Strategy was adopted to guide accelerated action from 2016, aligned with the SDGs. It set three targets for 2030, namely 90% reduction in deaths, 80% reduction in incidence, and zero catastrophic costs for patients and their families, along with the associated strategic actions. The Stop TB Partnership Global Plan to End TB 2016–2020 proposed the financing framework needed to implement the Strategy and reach targets, as well as the paradigm shift in mind-set needed to make it happen [
9]. However, WHO reports that investments and actions thus far fall short of those needed, with a gap of US$ 3.5 billion in 2018 in investment in TB interventions in low- and middle-income countries. The Treatment Action Group reports a US$ 1.3 billion annual gap in TB research financing [
10]. Yet, until recently, TB has not been addressed by government leaders, unlike some other global health concerns.
Action at the highest political level is emerging, with recognition of the profound threat of antimicrobial resistance, of the fact that TB has surpassed HIV/AIDS as the greatest infectious killer, and that research is needed for new tools to end TB. Related messages have been sent forth, for example, in the statements of the G20 [
11], the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation [
12], BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) [
13], and European Parliament leaders [
14]. WHO’s new leadership has advanced attention at higher political levels on global health, and engaged with civil society and other stakeholders to assert its commitments to drive greater collaboration to end TB. The WHO Global Ministerial Conference, Ending Tuberculosis in the Sustainable Development Era: A Multisectoral Response, held in November 2017 [
15], and its Moscow Declaration to End TB [
2], endorsed by ministers and other officials of nearly 120 countries, framed priorities for urgent action and to inform the upcoming UN high-level meeting. The actions included driving the TB response within the SDG Agenda with universal access to care and prevention, sufficient and sustainable financing, intensified research and innovation, and multisectoral accountability. Additionally, the Delhi End TB Summit of Southeast Asian countries in March 2018 [
16] and July’s African Union Assembly [
17] set new specific commitments.
In order to help enable the universal access to TB treatment needed to end TB, WHO, the Stop TB Partnership, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria have launched an initiative, known as ‘FIND. TREAT. ALL #ENDTB’, with the aim of mobilizing and supporting countries to enable the treatment of 40 million people with TB from 2018 to 2022 [
18]. Additionally, the Stop TB Partnership has put forward five ‘Key Asks’ [
19] to the leaders participating in the UN high-level meeting largely aligned with the actions called for in the Moscow Declaration [
2]. The ‘Key Asks’ include an appeal for US$ 13 billion in TB care and prevention investment annually up to 2022 and US$ 2 billion in annual research investment. The Global TB Caucus of parliamentarians put forward a related position statement and advocacy effort [
20].