London ? More than 130,000 lives could be saved if the world implements a two-year strategy to stop the growing problem of drug-resistant tuberculosis, the World Health Organization and partners said Thursday.

Officials are concerned that the current epidemic of curable TB might evolve into a drug-resistant variety immune to existing medicines.

The new plan from WHO and the Stop TB Partnership outlines actions they say are needed to slow the spread of multidrug-resistant TB and extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB.

WHO estimates that $2.15 billion is needed over the next two years to help poor countries tackle issues including disease surveillance, diagnosis and treatment. So far, the health agency says it has about $640 million.