Pharmaceutical company donating $1 million to TB training

US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly is donating $1 million (£500,000) to train doctors treating tuberculosis.

The firm has launched an interactive online course for physicians, which explains the best ways to diagnose, prevent and treat the infection, reports Reuters.

Figures estimate that nearly a third of the world's population is infected with the bacterium that causes TB and this can be triggered when immunity levels decrease in the patients.

According to the news agency, Eli Lilly said in a joint statement with the World Medical Association: "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.

"The knowledge and handling of tuberculosis treatment is still insufficient."

Incomplete treatment of the disease, the company claims, is responsible for the occurrence of extremely resistant TB.

During April, the World Health Organisation issued new measures to strengthen the global response to drug-resistant TB. A new course of treatments was put forward at the second WHO XDR-TB Task Force meeting.