It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Dissolution.

The UK Government recognises that the Global Tuberculosis Report 2019 provides important evidence on the challenges in tackling tuberculosis as an issue of global public health importance. It shows that progress has been made, particularly improvements in the number of cases of tuberculosis identified and increases in testing coverage for drug resistant tuberculosis. 7 million people with tuberculosis were identified globally in 2018; 600,000 more people than in 2017. Additionally, the proportion of people with a tuberculosis diagnosis who were tested for drug resistance rose from 41% in 2017 to 51% in 2018.

Investments in the Global Fund have played a major role in tackling the global epidemic of tuberculosis. Dealing with drug resistant tuberculosis is a key focus of the Global Fund through prevention, detection and treatment, including supporting countries to introduce bedaquiline and delamanid, two ground breaking new drugs for the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis. The new drugs have fewer side effects and are more effective, increasing the chances that people will stay on the treatment and be cured.

We work with the Global Fund to ensure that our investment continues to support advances to improve access to treatment for both drug sensitive and drug resistant tuberculosis.

Millions of tuberculosis cases continue to go undiagnosed and untreated each year – identifying these is essential to ending the tuberculosis epidemic, which killed 1.5 million people globally in 2018. We are pleased to note the improvement in the number of cases of tuberculosis identified as confirmed by the World Health Organisation Global Tuberculosis Report published on 17 October. 7 million people with tuberculosis were identified globally in 2018, including 600,000 more people than in 2017.

The Global Fund has played an important part in this improvement. A joint initiative between the Global Fund, the Stop TB Partnership and the World Health Organisation aims to accelerate progress in finding people with tuberculosis in 13 countries with the highest disease burden. In these countries, by the end of 2018, already more than 800,000 additional patients were found and treated, compared with the baseline of 2015.

The UK remains fully committed to achieving the targets set out in the World Health Organisation End Tuberculosis Strategy, recently pledging £1.4 billion to the Sixth Replenishment of the Global Fund.

The Global Tuberculosis Report 2019 provides important evidence on the challenge in tackling tuberculosis as an issue of global public health importance. We remain committed to the global effort and the World Health Organisation End Tuberculosis Strategy. We are proud to be at the forefront of work to prevent, detect and treat tuberculosis, including funding research to develop new treatments to tackle drug resistant tuberculosis. Our commitment to provide £1.4 billion to the latest replenishment of the Global Fund will help provide tuberculosis treatment and care for over 2 million people.

A new tuberculosis vaccine could potentially have a significant effect on reducing tuberculosis deaths, and there is cautious optimism about the results for one potential vaccine, although there is still a very high degree of uncertainty for this high-risk research. DFID carefully considers robust data on specific vaccines before taking a view on its role in tackling a disease, including its relative impact alongside other established interventions.