How AI Is Accelerating The Fight Against An Ancient Killer
10 July 2025
Tuberculosis (TB) remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease – an ancient killer that still claims over a million lives each year, mostly among the world’s poorest and hardest-to-reach. Yet we are on the brink of a new era of progress in the fight against the disease. This transformation is driven by a range of innovations, including artificial intelligence (AI).
AI is rapidly improving our ability to detect TB in people and places that conventional health systems often fail to reach. With AI-powered software that analyzes digital chest X-rays, health workers can quickly identify people with TB. Mounted on mobile vans, these tools are bringing lifesaving care directly to underserved communities – prisoners, refugees, poor rural communities and the socially marginalized – helping us reach people with the disease who have long been missed by health systems.
This is a breakthrough in how we deliver equitable access to TB diagnosis, treatment and care. In Pakistan – one of the countries with the highest TB burden – mobile clinics equipped with AI-assisted digital X-rays screen people on the spot, flagging potential cases for follow-up. This leads to earlier diagnosis, faster treatment, fewer people with TB missed and ultimately, more lives saved. Even better, these platforms aren’t limited to detecting TB. They can also identify other lung diseases – pneumonia and whooping cough – as well as other noncommunicable diseases such as cardiomegaly.
This is just one example of how AI is driving greater capacity, increasing efficiency and providing novel ways of reaching people where they are. For funders, this translates into a higher return on investment – one tool serving multiple functions, strengthening frontline care and improving efficiency across the health system.
Scaling AI effectively will require focused investment to support countries in defining their priorities and shaping their own agenda. As we have seen with pharmaceuticals, the most impactful tools are those developed in collaboration with the people they are supposed to serve. Countries and communities must be supported to lead. Just as our partnerships on biomedical products have advanced health equity, AI must do the same – delivering impact that is not only effective, but also inclusive and equitable.
At the Global Fund, we have invested over $193 million between 2021 and 2025 to roll out AI-enabled TB screening in more than 20 countries. But this is just the start. We see AI not only as a tool to beat TB, but as a platform that can power a much more efficient use of resources, support integrated service delivery spanning infectious diseases and noncommunicable conditions, and also strengthen pandemic preparedness and response.
Our use of AI in the fight against TB – and the progress our partnership is making in reaching underserved communities – is a compelling proof of concept. The world is making significant gains in finding more people with TB. In 2023, 8.2 million people were identified as ill with the disease, up from 7.5 million in 2022 and 7.1 million in 2019. This is a dramatic improvement over the COVID-era lows of 5.8 million (2020) and 6.4 million (2021). The number of people with TB who go undiagnosed is also shrinking rapidly: just 2.7 million in 2023, down from about 4 million in both 2020 and 2021, and below the 2019 pre-pandemic level of 3.2 million.
This progress is imperative. Without treatment, tuberculosis is often fatal, and a person with active, untreated TB can infect up to 15 others in a single year. Every individual we identify and treat brings us one step closer to ending this age-old disease and strengthening global health security.
We know that AI can be a powerful tool for good in the fight against deadly infectious diseases. The question is whether our will to deploy it at scale will match its proven effectiveness and its transformative potential. For philanthropists and private sector partners, this is a moment where they can choose to make a huge difference. In resource-constrained settings, philanthropic funding and partnership will be essential to support countries to lead, define, develop and scale AI solutions that work. With this, we can deliver high-impact, scalable solutions that strengthen primary care, enable earlier treatment, and ensure we reach those most in need and those left furthest behind, as we are seeing in TB.
That’s a powerful promise – but it’s one we’ll only fulfill if we get it right. AI must be developed and deployed responsibly, with transparency, respect for local context and equity as its guiding principles. It must work for the people who are often excluded from the benefits of innovations.
For donors seeking to invest in high-impact innovation, this is an opportunity to support solutions that are not only effective but truly transformational, saving lives and helping to build a healthier, more equitable future for all.
By Peter Sands
Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria
Source: Forbes
