Our $80,000,000 Bet

good morning hick it's Tuesday last week I was in Washington DC to ask senators and Congress people to prioritize tuberculosis the world's deadliest infectious disease but I was also there to make an announcement about our family's commitment to support comprehensive tuberculosis care in some ways this is the biggest bet of my life a bet that we simply don't have to live in a world where over a million people die every year of a curable and preventable disease and it's time to start putting my money where my mouth is so today's video comes to you in three parts part one our $880 million bet so as I discussed in this video last week we know how to end tuberculosis because we know how we drove down TB rates by over 99% in the US and many other countries in the 1950s and 60s we did it by searching for cases providing Curative treatment to every single person with tuberculosis and offering preventative therapy to their close contacts but that kind of comprehensive care has long been seen as too expensive or complicated for poor countries leading to an insane situation where we have a cure for tuberculosis but we don't get that cure to the places it's actually needed now that is not to say the work is easy it's hard like it's easy enough and true to say that tuberculosis is curable but then it gets a little more complicated once you're talking about how many van based x-ray machines you'll need and who's going to pay community health workers and other health care workers to screen for tuberculosis and the differences between screening in rural and urban communities and so on so okay at a briefing on Thursday USA announced a new program to fund truly comprehensive care in regions of Ethiopia and the Philippines the hope is these projects can be both a blueprint and a beacon to show how we end tuberculosis worldwide and for once they're pretty well funded in the Philippines us a will devote $10 million a year to this project we're kicking in a million dollar a year and the Philippine government is matching all of that by providing $1 million a year this means that over the next four years this project can have over $80 million to fund comprehensive TB care beginning in one region of the country which has the fourth highest prevalence of tuberculosis in the world now we're only putting in like 4% of the money but I hope it's an important 4% and also it gives us a seat at the table to see up close both the challenges and hopefully the successes of trying to radically drive down tuberculosis rates in the Philippines I really believe the only way we can end TB is with this kind of public private partnership I mean this is a relatively small one we need much bigger ones but like that's how we ended small poox that's how we've almost ended polio because government buying to NTB is absolutely essential no individual has enough money to end this disease that's actually not true very few individuals have enough money to end this disease and they aren't interested in doing that right now there are so many people involved in this from USA to the Department of Health in the Philippines to the Partners in Health Community to all these Philippine Nos and to see them working together together over the last few months as we've been planning this project has been so inspirational it's not going to be easy there are definitely risks but I'm betting big on this project because I truly believe it has the chance to be transformational in how we think about what's possible when it comes to tuberculosis so a couple things first this is not the end of our bet that TB can be defeated and second we're not asking you for money yet because this can be covered by Hank and me and a few exceptionally passionate TV fighter in nerd fight areia so yeah we're donating a million dollar a year to this USA is bringing $10 million a year and the Philippine government is bringing over $1 million a year which altogether is a lot of money now of course comes the hard part doing as much good as possible With It Part Two I know there are many Filipino nerd Fighters or nerd fighters of Filipino descent hello if you're interested in this project I'd like to be able to get your ongoing feedback and also share updates with you as they become available because citizens asking their government to prioritize TB is a big reason we got to this momentous occasion so if you want to be part of that group you can email Nerdfighters Philippines gmail.com or find that in in the dooby-doo part three we're launching something new and very exciting over at crash course crash course lectures these are like long deep dives into a single topic with unbelievably beautiful Graphics we're really excited about it and the first one comes out on Monday at noon eastern time and it was written and is posted by me and you'll never guess what it's about we're doing a Premiere so we can all watch it live together and chat with each other noon eastern time on Monday at the crash course Channel whether it's maternal mortality in Sierra Leon or the global tuberculosis crisis I am genuinely astonished by what nerd Feria has done through orienting their attention and some of their other resources in the same direction it's extraordinary and I am so so grateful hey I'll see you on Friday

Channel: vlogbrothers

Views: 191,033

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Id: T9O6v2W39qQ

Length: 5min 2sec (302 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2024