Eli Lilly to help train doctors in treating TB

US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly will donate $1 million to train doctors treating tuberculosis (TB), a disease that infects 9 million people every year and kills nearly 2 million.
The interactive online course is meant as a refresher for physicians on the best ways to diagnose, prevent and treat the respiratory infection that spreads through coughs and sneezes and can be especially deadly for people with HIV or AIDS. "This will allow more physicians around the world to acquire the basic knowledge on standard TB management at a time when there is a resurgence of the epidemic," Eli Lilly said in a joint statement with the World Medical Association. The emergence and spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis germs have hindered international efforts to stop its spread. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 5 percent of tuberculosis cases worldwide cannot be cured with the first-line antibiotics normally prescribed.