8 May 2026 by Pascalinah Kabi

A British parliamentarian and Global Tuberculosis (TB) Caucus Chairperson, Nick Herbert, says there is no reason for people to continue falling sick or dying from tuberculosis at a time when better drugs and improved diagnostic tools are available to fight the disease.

Herbert called on Lesotho Members of Parliament to take a leading role in the fight against TB, a disease that is estimated to have affected around 13,000 Lesotho nationals in 2024. Despite this burden, TB remains severely underfunded, making it difficult for the Ministry of Health to trace patients and link them to treatment.

“TB is highly underfunded in this country. Patients do not adhere to medication because of hunger,” said Dr Llang Maama, Director General of Health Services at the Ministry of Health, while addressing Parliament on 8 May 2026.

Herbert, who had earlier urged MPs to take up the fight, said: “You can be heroes in the fight against this disease,” calling for a united parliamentary voice in support of TB patients and stronger political commitment.

“Today, there is no need for anyone to fall sick with tuberculosis, and no need for anyone to die from tuberculosis. The time to beat this disease is long overdue.”

He further warned that while the Sustainable Development Goals target the end of TB by 2030, progress remains far off track.

“The Sustainable Development Goals say TB will be beaten by 2030—just four years from now. On the current trajectory, TB will not be beaten for another 100 years. That is how off target we are. It is only through the voices of parliamentarians, the political leadership of health ministers, and our collective determination that we can change this story,” Herbert said.

A preventable death sentence

Speaking at the launch of Lesotho’s TB parliamentary caucus on 8 May 2026 at the National Assembly buildings in Maseru, Herbert began his speech with an analogy that invited Lesotho members of parliament to imagine a World Health Organisation (WHO) announcing a new disease that would kill half a million people around the world by this time in 2027. He invited parliamentarians to imagine if 4500 of those would be from Lesotho, arguing that politicians would take every possible steps to beat TB.

“And yet that is the reality today of tuberculosis, a disease that has been with us as long as man has been on this earth. For nearly a century, tuberculosis has been beatable.  Since the discovery of antibiotics, we have known how to cure TB, we know how to prevent TB. Today there are ever better drugs, diagnostics, a vaccine is in sight,” Herbert said.

He pointed that the tools to beat TB are at hand, with countries having competing pressures on how to spend scarce public funds. Herbert argues that there is no more important way to spend funds than to save human lives and for commitment of resources to beat TB is money very well spend because then the disease will be beaten for ever.

“We owe it to the thousands of victims, thousands of people who will fall ill, thousands who will die unnecessarily. We owe it to them to commit those resources to tackle this terrible disease. But more than resources, we need the willingness to stand up, together we can and must be beat this disease.”

Herbert wants parliamentarians to marshall all the resources at their our disposal to work together with all the relevant agencies to encourage the commitment of those resources and to hold to account those who are charged with tackling this disease.

“That is the leadership that we need, and that leadership above all must come from members of parliament. That is why we set up the Global TB Caucus because as parliamentarians, we have a voice, we have the ability to stand in national forums like this and to say something must be done.

“We need to use our voice to champion our communities because they do not have a voice themselves. It is our responsibilities to give them that voice and it is our responsibility to encourage action from our governments, to hold them to account and to praise them when they take the action that can beat this disease,” Herbert said.

According to Herbert, the Global TB Caucus believes the launch of the Lesotho caucus is significant. This is based on its experience over the past ten years, which shows that strong national caucuses can drive meaningful action.

He explained that when Members of Parliament come together across party and political lines to pursue a common cause and declare that TB can and must be beaten, action is strengthened within their own countries. This is because parliamentarians are more effective when they speak with a united voice in urging such action.