Drug Resistant Tuberculosis News and Research

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NIH awards KGI $3.6M grant to develop diagnostic assays and devices for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis

Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) Director of Research Angelika Niemz has been awarded a four-year, $3.6 million collaborative research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

21 Jul 2010

Scientists awarded $3.9M grant to study how XDR-TB transmitted in rural South Africa

The National Institutes of Health has awarded scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University a five-year, $3.9 million grant to study how extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis is transmitted in rural South Africa. The findings could alter public health approaches for controlling the XDR-TB epidemic in the developing world.

3 Jun 2010

Scientists develop dry, inhalable measles vaccine, will begin testing in India this summer

CBSNews.com reports on the development of a dry, inhalable measles vaccine by researchers at the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder), who hope that their work will "help pave the way for the inexpensive treatment of a range of other illnesses" (Cooper, 5/5).

10 May 2010

Report: Conditions in Zambian prisons fueling spread of HIV, TB

"Conditions in Zambia's prisons are so overcrowded and medical care so inadequate that they are breeding grounds for disease and pose a serious threat to public health, says a new report by Human Rights Watch, produced in association with the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa and the Prisons Care and Counselling Association," BMJ News reports.

29 Apr 2010

Pfizer to expand clinical trials in Asia, work on development of antibiotics for drug-resistant TB

The pharmaceutical company Pfizer said on Wednesday that it plans to increase the number of clinical trials it's conducting in Singapore by 10 percent as part of an effort "to design drugs for diseases prevalent in the region," Reuters reports.

9 Apr 2010

MicuRx Pharmaceuticals, Cumencor Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer collaborate to develop antibiotics for MDR-TB

MicuRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of antibiotics to treat drug-resistant bacteria, and Cumencor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that the companies have entered a collaboration with Pfizer to discover novel therapeutic agents to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

7 Apr 2010

Research challenges current thinking about TB bacterium

Two new tuberculosis studies by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers provide good news and bad news about the bacterium that infects nearly a third of the world's population and a disease that kills nearly 2 million people each year.

30 Mar 2010

Recent releases in Global Health

"Sub-Saharan Africa is affected by a disproportionately high prevalence of both HIV infection and food scarcity," write the authors of an American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article on the relationship between malnutrition and the progression of HIV/AIDS. "Underweight individuals will continue to represent a significant proportion of patients who present for HIV care in sub-Saharan Africa.

27 Mar 2010

Senate briefing to discuss TB and drug-resistant TB

A Senate briefing today will discuss TB and drug-resistant TB, including multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug resistant (XDR-TB), the impact on global health and the current state of surveillance, diagnosis and treatment around the world.

26 Mar 2010

UNAIDS Executive Director calls for 'serious attention to TB' on World TB Day

In a statement marking World Tuberculosis Day, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe "warned Wednesday that double infections of HIV and TB could become the next new epidemic," the Associated Press reports. Sidibe said, "I'm calling for serious attention to TB, and serious attention to TB-HIV co-infection" (Corder, 3/24).

25 Mar 2010

WHO estimates 440 000 MDR-TB cases in 2008

In some areas of the world, one in four people with tuberculosis (TB) becomes ill with a form of the disease that can no longer be treated with standard drugs regimens, a World Health Organization (WHO) report says.

19 Mar 2010

Achillion Pharmaceuticals receives NIH SBIR grant for study of novel antibacterial compound series

Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leader in the discovery and development of small molecule drugs to combat the most challenging infectious diseases, today announced that it has received a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research Grant (SBIR) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the further study and characterization of a back-up series of compounds related to its novel antibacterial, ACH-702.

18 Mar 2010

Also in Global Health News: U.S. Ambassador to U.N.; Male circumcision; River blindness in Ecuador; Nursing shortage in Caribbean; Maternal health in Bolivia; Drug-resistant TB in North Korea; Cholera vaccine

Betty King reported to her new position as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports. "Washington's Geneva mission had been without an ambassador since Warren W. Tichenor left his post on Jan. 20, 2009 - when Barack Obama was sworn in as president," according to the news service (3/3).

4 Mar 2010

TBTC to receive more than $90 million to develop effective tuberculosis treatments

The Tuberculosis Trials Consortium (TBTC) strives to conduct research about the diagnosis, medical treatment, and prevention of tuberculosis (TB) infection and disease. The network is composed of a partnership of clinical investigators from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), public health departments from different countries, as well as medical and pharmaceutical institutions.

10 Feb 2010

Atlantic examines drug-resistant TB control worldwide

The Atlantic examines the emergence of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis around the world, with a look at the situation in South Africa. "[T]he resurgence of tuberculosis is not limited to South Africa. India and China have the largest numbers of tuberculosis cases, and multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has been found in nearly every country, with XDR [extensively drug resistant]-TB in at least 57 countries," according to the article.

18 Jan 2010

Opinions: Community-based health care models; U.S. leadership in reproductive health care

"We don't need to start fresh to create patient-centered medical homes. We just need to look to community-based models of care that are effective but often go unrecognized," according to a Boston Globe opinion piece by Heidi Behforouz, the director of the Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment project, which is based on "a model that Partners in Health pioneered to fight HIV in rural Haiti and drug-resistant tuberculosis in Peru."

22 Dec 2009

Also in global health news: Clean water in India; cholera in Kenya; Zuma, Gates discuss HIV/AIDS; MDR-TB in Marshall Islands; sanitation in Jakarta

India's Tata Group on Monday "unveiled a new low-cost water purifier, which it hopes will provide safe drinking water for millions and cut the toll of deadly diseases," Agence France-Presse/mysinchew.com reports.

8 Dec 2009

New faces of HIV/AIDS: A report

World AIDS Day 2009 will be marked with both grim and hopeful data: more than 25 million people have died of AIDS worldwide since 1981; 33 million are living with HIV/AIDS. While potent, effective medications have changed an HIV diagnosis from death sentence to manageable chronic illness in resource rich countries, global rates of infection still outstrip prevention and treatment capacity.

16 Nov 2009

Also in global health news: Somali IDPS; MDR-TB elimination; Chagas; Zimbabwe disease, hunger

At the conclusion of a week-long visit to the region, Walter Kalin, a top U.N. human-rights official "says the international community is failing in its duty to internally displaced persons in Somalia. More than 1.5 million people in Somalia are believed to be IDPs," VOA News reports (Boswell, 10/21).

23 Oct 2009

Also in global health news: Africa measles eradication; water, food security in South Asia; MDR-TB in Mumbai; SADC summit; U.S. Cuba embargo

WHO Regional Director for Africa Luis Gomes Sambo said Tuesday during the 59th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in Kigali, Rwanda, that measles could be eradicated from the continent by 2020, citing an 89 percent reduction in the number of deaths caused by measles between 2000 and 2007, Angencia AngolaPress reports.

4 Sep 2009