On July 18, 1921, a newborn child in Paris became the first person to receive an experimental dose of the Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine for tuberculosis. A century later, it’s now the most commonly used vaccine in the world. It is also still the only licensed vaccine for the disease.

All-cause mortality was found to be higher in men vs women after treatment for tuberculosis (TB), according to results from a retrospective cohort study and a meta-analysis published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The partnership will accelerate the development of new TB drug regimens as part of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private European Research & Development Consortium.

The results of ZeNix, a Phase 3 clinical trial that took place in 11 sites across Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and South Africa, revealed that the 6-month BPaL treatment regimen (bedaquiline, pretomanid and linezolid) remains effective against highly drug-resistant strains of TB with either reduced dosage or duration of the linezolid component of the regimen. Simultaneously, with the maintenance of efficacy, there was a decrease in linezolid associated side effects.

-- TB kills 1.4 million people a year, an infectious disease toll only recently surpassed by COVID-19.
-- COVID-19 has reversed years of progress in TB response, costing additional lives and adding to the urgency of the global TB problem.
-- MTBVAC is a highly promising vaccine candidate that has the potential to be used as an alternative to BCG vaccination in infants and for prevention of TB disease in adolescents and adults.

Boosting the body’s own disease-fighting immune pathway could provide answers in the desperate search for new treatments for tuberculosis.

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s (LSHTM) research into tackling antimicrobial resistance and tuberculosis has been boosted through a new partnership with Johnson & Johnson.

WHO releases an update to its consolidated guidelines on the detection of TB and drug-resistant TB, accompanied by an operational handbook to facilitate rapid implementation and roll out of rapid molecular tests.

On 30 June 2021, the Third World Network and People's Health Movement conducted a webinar to discuss challenges in accessing affordable new TB treatments, new treatments in the pipeline, the trends in patenting and implications for access.

6 July 2021, Geneva | A global database set up by WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Programme in collaboration with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) has been collating data on Active TB Drug Safety Monitoring and Management (aDSM) since 2016,  to monitor the safety of patients who receive MDR-TB treatment with new medicines (e.g. bedaquiline, delamanid), repurposed medicines (e.g. linezolid, clofazimine) or new regimens, which don't have a well-established safety profile. The aDSM framework has been promoted by WHO and stakeholders since 2015 for monitoring safety for patients who receive MDR-TB treatment with medicines of interest and successfully implemented in many countries for ensuring safety of patients while rolling of the newly recommended MDR-TB treatment regimens.