Today at 1 p.m. EST, the Kaiser Family Foundation will hold a live, interactive webcast from its Washington, D.C., studio featuring an expert panel discussing the U.S. strategy for combating the global tuberculosis epidemic. TB, a preventable and curable disease, remains one of the world’s major causes of illness and death, resulting in close to 2 million deaths in 2007. The majority of TB cases and deaths are concentrated in developing countries, particularly those in Asia and Africa. During this live webcast, the panel will discuss the U.S. government’s global response to TB, including the status of a Congressionally-mandated five-year global TB strategy, how such a strategy will be integrated into the administration’s broader Global Health Initiative, and key challenges that remain – such as the link between HIV and TB – in combating the disease around the world.

Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President Jen Kates will moderate the discussion, which is part of the Foundation’s U.S. Global Health Policy: In Focus live webcast series. Panelists will take questions from viewers, which can be submitted ahead of time or during the live program to infocus@kff.org.

Panelists taking part in the webcast:

• Christine Sizemore, chief, Tuberculosis, Leprosy and other Mycobacterial Diseases Section, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Cheri Vincent, senior public health advisor, Infectious Diseases Division, Bureau for Global Health, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
• Christine Lubinski, vice president for global health at the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and director of the Center for Global Health Policy
• Robin Wood, director, Desmond Tutu HIV Centre (DTHC), Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town