TAG Statement: Governments and Donors Must Step Forward to Fund Global, Equitable Access to New TB Vaccines in Development
6 November 2025
Contact: Mike Frick, TB project co-director, mike.frick@treatmentactiongroup.org
November 6, New York — Treatment Action Group (TAG) welcomes the report published today by the World Health Organization TB Vaccine Accelerator Council on how to finance global, equitable access to new TB vaccines. Presented at the G20 Health Ministers Meeting hosted by the Government of South Africa, Catalyzing Solutions for Equitable Global Access and Sustainable Financing for Novel Tuberculosis Vaccines for Adults and Adolescents sends a clear and urgent message to governments, funders, and financing institutions: the time to begin raising the funding required to deliver new TB vaccines is now.
Thanks to decades of investments in research and development, several candidate TB vaccines are in late-stage development and may be proved safe and effective, and — if so — licensed and recommended in the coming years. TB is the world’s leading infectious disease killer, and new vaccines would give countries a powerful new tool for protecting their people against the disease.
The report warns that market challenges related to supply, demand, and financing threaten broad, equitable access to new TB vaccines. Modeled projections show that global demand for new TB vaccines will outpace available supply in the years after launch without well-made plans for corrective intervention. Six proposed solutions call attention to the proactive steps governments, funders, vaccine developers, manufacturers, civil society, and other stakeholders must take, starting today, to avert deadly supply shortages tomorrow.
TAG calls attention to the proposal to create a “global catalytic instrument” to pool financing, aggregate demand across countries, and de-risk early manufacturing by offering incentives such as volume guarantees to the first vaccines to reach the market. It is imperative that governments, funders, and financing institutions, including multilateral development banks, come together to create the instrument and commit adequate resources to it.
TAG TB project co-director Mike Frick represents civil society on the TB Vaccine Accelerator Council and participates in its Working Group on Finance and Access, which supported the analyses contained in the report. “Any financing instrument for new TB vaccines must promote a competitive market, foster greater transparency into supply chains and agreements, contain concrete safeguards for access and affordability, and be inclusive of all countries,” said Frick. “We are encouraged to see these critical enablers reflected in the report’s proposal. Civil society must ensure they become a part of any eventual instrument.”
Reflecting on lessons learned from the recent introductions of other transformative prevention tools, such as long-acting lenacapavir or cabotegravir to prevent HIV, TAG executive director Mark Harrington said, “Governments can’t plan disease prevention programs in the dark. Supplier agreements should be in the public domain and any deals concerning price, volumes, cost-of-goods, and other critical determinants of access broadly known so that civil society and affected communities can play their accountability role and shape global and national purchasing commitments for equitable outcomes.”
Later this year, TAG will release a report examining vulnerabilities in the global supply chain of a key adjuvant used in one of the leading TB vaccine candidates. Those findings will underscore the central message of today’s report: the world must come together to create an ambitious, resilient roll-out plan and a robust, transparent market, so that the promise of new TB vaccines becomes a reality for the millions of people who need them.
###
About TAG: Treatment Action Group (TAG) is an independent, activist and community-based research and policy think tank fighting for better treatment, prevention, a vaccine, and a cure for HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C virus. TAG works to ensure that all people with HIV, TB, and HCV receive life-saving treatment, care, and information. We are science-based treatment activists working to expand and accelerate vital research and effective community engagement with research and policy institutions.
Source: TAG
