New WHO Model List of Essential Medicines published; After about 45 years of scarce innovation for TB medicines, 5 new products are included in the List. Four of these, including bedaquiline and delamanid, target multidrug-resistant TB.

This survey is the first to capture governments’ own assessments of their response to resistance to antimicrobial medicines used to treat conditions such as bloodstream infections, pneumonia, tuberculosis, malaria and HIV.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major health problem in many of the world’s prisons: infection rates can be more than 10 times higher than in the general population. Frequently overcrowded and poorly ventilated, many prisons lack early detection and sound treatment programmes to combat the disease – even though many prisoners come from population groups that are already at high risk of TB infection and disease, such as people who inject drugs or are homeless.

As countries mark World Tuberculosis Day on March 24, WHO is calling for “global solidarity and action” to support a new 20-year strategy, which aims to end the global tuberculosis epidemic.

The Joint Partners Forum for strengthening and aligning TB diagnosis and treatment, which will unite GLI and GDI partners, will be convened at World Health Organization Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland on April 27-30, 2015.

The 9th meeting on HIV/TB research in conjunction with CROI 2015 was organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Seattle, USA on February 23, 2015. The meeting was convened by Haileyesus Getahun and Meg Doherty of WHO and chaired by Richard Chaisson of John Hopkins University and Constance Benson of University of California, San Diego. The meeting was opened with remarks from Eric Goosby, the UN Special Envoy on Tuberculosis, who briefly shared his plans to support the advancement of TB research which is now included as one of the three pillars of the WHO’s new End TB Strategy.

23 February 2015 | Geneva - Use of the same syringe or needle to give injections to more than one person is driving the spread of a number of deadly infectious diseases worldwide. Millions of people could be protected from infections acquired through unsafe injections if all health-care programmes switched to syringes that cannot be used more than once. For these reasons, the World Health Organization (WHO) is launching a new policy on injection safety and a global campaign with support from the IKEA Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to help all countries tackle the pervasive issue of unsafe injections.

The deadline for the submission of public comments on applications to be considered by the 20th Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential medicines has been extended until Wednesday 25 February 2015.

23 Februrary 2015, 11:30-13:30 | Sheraton Seattle Hotel, 1400 Sixth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101, USA

Technical and operational ‘how-to’: practical considerations