In order to defeat tuberculosis (TB), “we need to invest in treatment and ensure that it reaches all those who are infected because otherwise, we will not be able to break the back of this epidemic,” Lucy Chesire, executive director and secretary to the Board of the TB ACTION Group, writes in the Huffington Post’s “Impact” blog. “This week, TB advocates from all around the world, including Lucica Ditiu (the executive secretary of the Stop TB Partnership based in Geneva), are gathering in Paris at the 44th Union World Conference on Lung Health,” she notes. “As we get closer to the Global Fund Pledging Conference which will take place in Washington, D.C., on December 3, the critical role the Global Fund plays in fighting TB — recent results indicate it has helped provide treatment to 11 million people and is responsible for three-quarters of all international financing for TB — will be top of mind for advocates and others at the TB conference,” Chesire writes and includes a transcript of an interview with Ditiu. “If the Global Fund doesn’t reach its [funding] target, the fragile progress that we have seen in TB over the past 10 years will be eroded and we will never … stop the spread of drug-resistant TB or save lives,” Ditiu said, according to the transcript (10/30).