Putin thanked the WHO chief for supporting the fight against tuberculosis in Russia

"In 2009, our country signed an agreement on cooperating with the WHO and currently the strategy for cooperation up to 2020 is being implemented," Putin said at the meeting with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and First Deputy UN Secretary-General Amina Mohammed during the WHO global conference for ending tuberculosis, TASS reports.

"We plan to further actively cooperate with you, and hope that the UN will support this work. This will benefit all Russian citizens and all citizens of the UN member-states," Putin said.

The meeting was also attended by Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova.

The Russian leader thanked the WHO chief and the first deputy UN Secretary-General for supporting the fight against tuberculosis in Russia and recalled that this is not the first large-scale event in the WHO framework in Russia. In 2014, Moscow hosted a major conference under the WHO auspices on the fight against smoking.

Amina Mohammed conveyed to Putin a message of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and congratulated the Russian leader on the successful conference on the fight against tuberculosis. He praised Russia’s role in the WHO effort on combating various diseases and stressed that only with close cooperation with Russia it is possible to counter global challenges in healthcare.

The WHO chief thanked the Russian president for political will during cooperation with the organization and financial support in tacking tuberculosis, malaria and noncontagious diseases. He said cooperation between Russia and the WHO and Putin’s support will allow holding a meeting at the high level in 2018 in New York during the UN General Assembly.

This week the Russian government announced a decision to allocate about $15 mln to the WHO in 2018-2020 to fight tuberculosis and "implement a joint project between Russia and the WHO to galvanize multisectoral measures to end tuberculosis."