Tuberculosis News and Research

Latest Tuberculosis News and Research

Novartis Afinitor Phase III trial on tuberous sclerosis meets primary endpoint

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation announced today Phase III trial results that showed more than one-third of patients taking Afinitor tablets experienced a 50% or greater reduction in the size of their subependymal giant cell astrocytomas, non-cancerous brain tumors associated with tuberous sclerosis complex.

8 Jul 2011

Vouchers and Health Equity Funds work well for poor: Research

In rich countries, the government can fund the health system directly, or subsidise the health costs of its inhabitants through the social security system. People then only pay a small lump sum. But in low and mid-income countries, the government doesn't have the money for (almost) free healthcare.

7 Jul 2011

Simpler antibiotic combination could help prevent TB in patients with and without HIV

Johns Hopkins and South African scientists have further compelling evidence that new, simpler and shorter treatments with antibiotic drugs could dramatically help prevent tens of millions of people worldwide already infected with the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, and especially those co-infected with HIV, from developing full-blown TB.

7 Jul 2011

Germany to restore half of Global Fund donation withheld earlier this year

"Germany is unblocking half of the funding it withheld from" the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria "following revelations of corruption earlier this year," the Associated Press reports.

6 Jul 2011

New GHI research examines conflicts between donor and recipient countries

In the early 2000s, the international aid community started to fund health programs through Global Health Initiatives (GHIs) which provide aid and support for tackling infectious diseases, and for implementing immunization programs against childhood diseases. However priorities set by GHIs and by governments are not always the same.

4 Jul 2011

TB fight must break from status quo

"As WHO prepares for reform, it is also adjusting to a new financially constrained environment. WHO's STOP TB department, like others, has to downsize and refocus its activities. With increasing demand for guidance, technical support, and capacity-building in countries, the STOP TB department and partnership will have to do more with less in the future," a Lancet editorial states.

2 Jul 2011

MSF website lends voice to TB patients

"Medecins Sans Frontieres, whose volunteer doctors run TB clinics around the world, has launched a website called TB and Me, where patients are regularly blogging on their experiences," Sarah Boseley writes in the Guardian's "Global Health Blog."

2 Jul 2011

Lancet seminar on tuberculosis

The current issue of the Lancet features a seminar on tuberculosis that "presents current perspectives on the scale of the epidemic, the pathogen and the host response, present and emerging methods for disease control, and the ongoing challenge of tuberculosis control in adults in the 21st century".

2 Jul 2011

Improving health vital to good governance in Nigeria

In a Daily Independent opinion piece, U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Terence McCulley writes that after "truly historic" elections in April, "the Nigerian Government faces complex challenges in the post-election environment. Security, electricity, good roads, education and reliable health care top most people's lists of immediate concerns."

30 Jun 2011

Global Fund reports mid-year results

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Tuesday announced that programs it supports have distributed 190 million insecticide-treated bed nets to protect families from malaria since 2003, according to mid-year results, a Global Fund press release notes.

30 Jun 2011

Recombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccines hold promise against infectious diseases

A powerful new class of therapeutics, known as recombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccines (RASV), holds great potential in the fight against fatal diseases including hepatitis B, tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid fever, AIDS and pneumonia.

30 Jun 2011

Prototype small molecule drugs could suppress hepatitis C

Targeted multi-drug treatments for hepatitis C patients that could stop the virus in its tracks have come a step closer, thanks to researchers at the University of Leeds, UK.

29 Jun 2011

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Mylan expand access to HIV drug Reyataz in sub-Saharan Africa and India

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company today announced a new agreement to expand access to Reyataz (atazanavir sulfate). The immunity-from-suit agreement signed with Matrix Laboratories Limited, a Mylan Company, enables the generic company to manufacture and sell atazanavir, as well as stavudine and didanosine, in sub-Saharan Africa and India.

29 Jun 2011

Researchers identify new component of plague causing bacterium that can be used as a vaccine

Researchers from the Smiley lab at the Trudeau Institute have now identified a single component of the plague causing bacterium that can be used as a vaccine. This single "subunit" could potentially be used to create a safer form of a T cell-stimulating plague vaccine. The new data is featured in the July issue of The Journal of Immunology.

27 Jun 2011

Promising results from MGH's BCG Phase I trial on type I diabetes

Promising results of the Phase I clinical trial of the generic drug BCG to treat advanced type I diabetes were announced today at the American Diabetes Association scientific sessions in San Diego.

27 Jun 2011

EMA CHMP recommends approval of linagliptin for type 2 diabetes

Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company today received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) medicinal committee recommending approval of linagliptin, 5 mg, film-coated tablets (to be marketed under the trade name Trajenta® in Europe) for the treatment of adults with type 2 diabetes.

24 Jun 2011

Woods Institute at Stanford University awards seven new Environmental Venture Project grants

The Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University has awarded seven new Environmental Venture Projects (EVP) grants for interdisciplinary research aimed at finding practical solutions promoting global sustainability.

24 Jun 2011

Evolutionary-management strategies to limit spread of drug-resistant diseases

In the war between drugs and drug-resistant diseases, is the current strategy for medicating patients giving many drug-resistant diseases a big competitive advantage?, asks a research paper that will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

24 Jun 2011

Global Fund signs onto International Aid Transparency Initiative

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced Thursday that "it has become a signatory of the International Aid Transparency Initiative, which "means that grant information currently on the Global Fund website will be aligned to an internationally agreed set of standards" and "financial and grant activity data and documentation will be accessible to a broader audience and will be comparable to information provided by other donors," according to a Global Fund press release.

24 Jun 2011

Eradicating malaria is a 'realistic possibility'

Eliminating malaria in endemic countries is a "realistic possibility if those countries keep expanding malaria prevention and treatment at the pace set in recent years," Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, writes on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's blog.

23 Jun 2011