Drug Resistant Tuberculosis News and Research

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China manages to halve TB prevalence in 20 years

Over the last 20 years, China has more than halved its tuberculosis (TB) prevalence, with rates falling from 170 to 59 per 100 000 population. This unrivalled success has been driven by a massive scale-up of the directly observed, short-course (DOTS) strategy, from half the population in the 1990s to the entire country after 2000, according to findings from a 20-year-long analysis of national survey data, published in The Lancet.

19 Mar 2014

Active ingredient in vinegar can effectively kill mycobacteria

The active ingredient in vinegar, acetic acid, can effectively kill mycobacteria, even highly drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis, an international team of researchers from Venezuela, France, and the US reports in mBio-, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

25 Feb 2014

Global atlas identifies greatest need for palliative care in low-and middle-income countries

Only 1 in 10 people who need palliative care - that is medical care to relieve the pain, symptoms and stress of serious illness - is currently receiving it. This unmet need is mapped for the first time in the "Global atlas of palliative care at the end of life", published jointly by the WHO and the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance.

29 Jan 2014

CHMP recommends approval of Otsuka's Deltyba for pulmonary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency has recommended approval of Deltyba (delamanid) in combination with a WHO recommended optimized background regimen for the treatment of pulmonary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). The CHMP opinion will help form the basis for a European Commission decision expected early next year.

25 Nov 2013

McMaster vaccine offers new hopes for global fight against TB

A tuberculosis vaccine developed at McMaster University offers new hopes for the global fight against tuberculosis.

3 Oct 2013

Funding for antimicrobial resistance research projects in the UK unacceptably small, say researchers

Study of funding awarded to antimicrobial resistance research projects in the UK calls for political leadership and sustained and targeted spending.

13 Sep 2013

MOOCs courses offered by JHUSON concentrate on Dementia and TB

An aging population and an old health scourge are the driving forces behind two massive open online courses (MOOCs) being offered this fall by the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON).

14 Aug 2013

Microbiologist uses new Geographic Information System to track deadly outbreaks of drug-resistant TB

TORONTO, ON - Professor Frances Jamieson at the University of Toronto's Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology (LMP), and Medical Microbiologist, Public Health Ontario, is leading the way in tracking potentially deadly outbreaks of tuberculosis (TB) with a powerful new Geographic Information System (GIS) application, known as Ontario Universal Typing - Tuberculosis (OUT-TB) Web.

13 Jun 2013

JPIDS releases consensus statement of Sentinel Project on Pediatric Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

The Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society today released its June issue, which includes a consensus statement of the global Sentinel Project on Pediatric Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis.

22 May 2013

Vitamin C kills drug-resistant TB bacteria in lab

In a striking, unexpected discovery, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have determined that vitamin C kills drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria in laboratory culture.

22 May 2013

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB): an interview with Dr. Jennifer Cohn, Médecins Sans Frontières

MDR-TB is tuberculosis, a mycobacterial infection, that has developed resistance to two important and powerful first-line anti-TB drugs, INH and rifampin.

26 Apr 2013

Global health efforts a casualty of across-the-board cuts under 'sequester'

"The across-the-board cuts under the 'sequester' will undermine efficient programs, along with the inefficient. One unfortunate casualty is spending on global health efforts," a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial says.

11 Apr 2013

New York Times examines emergence of XDR-TB in Australia, PNG

"Australia's first death from XDR-TB -- extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, which is nearly incurable -- has alarmed health officials and added new heat to a debate over how to treat immigrants with dangerous diseases," the New York Times reports.

27 Mar 2013

Global health community calls for more effective, accessible TB treatment in MSF statement

"Patients, doctors and international aid groups are calling on donors and governments to support measures that would make treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis more effective and accessible," Inter Press Service reports, noting, "The demands are being made amidst the recent or imminent approval of two new drugs" that some advocates say "present an historic opportunity to tackle the notoriously difficult-to-treat disease."

22 Mar 2013

WHO, Global Fund call for additional $1.6M a year to fight TB in low-, middle-income countries

"Low and middle-income countries need an additional $1.6 billion a year to fight tuberculosis, threatening progress made against the world's second-deadliest infectious disease," the WHO and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said in a joint statement released Monday, Bloomberg reports (Bennett, 3/18).

20 Mar 2013

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) patients and Médecins Sans Frontières medical staff call for urgent action

If measures to tackle multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are not significantly stepped up, including addressing barriers that prevent both research into better drug combinations and treatment scale up, MDR-TB rates will continue to increase worldwide and a historic opportunity to improve abysmal cure rates will have been squandered, medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières warned today.

20 Mar 2013

Wall Street Journal examines new initiative to combat drug-resistant TB in India

The Wall Street Journal examines a new effort to combat drug-resistant tuberculosis In India, noting "[a]n international health initiative has brokered a landmark accord that aims to halve the price patients pay for advanced tests for a strain of tuberculosis that is resistant to standard drugs."

19 Mar 2013

Health officials worried MDR-TB will become more common worldwide, in U.S.

The case of a Nepalese man with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) traveling through 13 countries before illegally entering the U.S. from Mexico, "first described by Betsy McKay at the Wall Street Journal, provides a window on a problem that health officials say is sure to arise more and more often," NPR's "Shots" blog reports.

12 Mar 2013

Case of immigrant with XDR-TB shows global vulnerability to infectious diseases, Wall Street Journal reports

The Wall Street Journal profiles the case of a man infected with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) who is being detained in South Texas after a "three-month odyssey through 13 countries -- from his homeland of Nepal through South Asia, Brazil, Mexico, and finally into Texas -- show[ing] the way in which dangerous new strains of the disease can migrate across the world unchecked."

6 Mar 2013

Cubist receives FDA QIDP designation for ceftolozane/tazobactam to treat HABP/ VABP, cUTI

Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated the company's late-stage antibiotic candidate, ceftolozane/tazobactam, as a Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) for the indications of Hospital-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia (HABP)/Ventilator-Associated Bacterial Pneumonia (VABP) and Complicated Urinary Tract Infections (cUTI).

1 Mar 2013