Microsoft chairman Bill Gates today said his charitable foundation would triple its funding for tuberculosis eradication from $300 million to $900 million (€740 million) by 2015.
The effort is part of a larger campaign announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to stop tuberculosis worldwide. The disease killed 1.6 million people in 2005.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obsanjo, British Chancellor Gordon Brown and Mr Gates called for help to treat 50 million people and prevent 14 million TB deaths globally in the next 10 years.
The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis was formed by the Stop Tuberculosis Partnership, a group of 400 organisations.
"I welcome the Gates Foundation's announcement today. For far too long, world leaders have ignored the global tuberculosis epidemic, even as it causes millions of needless deaths each year," said Mr Brown.