Tuberculosis care is quintessentially colonial, even in 2021. While many countries have been emancipated from their colonizers, the heritage of the colonial mindset, culture and even entire economies is deeply embedded within high burden TB countries in the post-colonial era.  

March 25, 2021 – Results of TB Alliance’s Phase 3 clinical trial, known as STAND, have been published in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

It is a hundred years since the BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guerin) vaccine, the only registered vaccine proven to offer some protection against tuberculosis , was first used in people. A relative shortage of public funding and little interest from pharmaceutical companies to develop new unprofitable TB vaccines has frustrated scientific research in this area for most of the last century.

“Medicines shouldn’t be a luxury”: For over ten years, I have been working with inspiring teams around the globe creating and coordinating public campaigns that ignite people’s imaginations and change lives.

Globally, the number of people living with HIV who died from tuberculosis (TB), a curable and preventable disease, has fallen from almost 600 000 deaths in 2010 to just over 200 000 in 2019, a fall of 63%. In 2016, a global target was set by the United Nations to reduce TB deaths among people living with HIV by 75% between 2010 and 2020. Nine countries (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Malawi, South Africa, Sudan, Thailand and Togo) achieved or exceeded the global target by the end of 2019, one year ahead of schedule.

The World Health Organization (WHO) released a special edition of its newsletter in commemoration of World TB Day, 24 March, highlighting #EndTB messages and statements from global leaders, video recordings of conducted events, released materials and documents, and other related news and updates from the organization.

Global Fund surveys in 13 countries with the highest TB burden in the world reveal that 29% fewer people were tested for TB compared to 2019.

-- A clinical trial testing a shorter regimen for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has stopped enrolling patients early.
-- The trial, sponsored by MSF, has stopped randomising patients because of data which has indicated the trial regimen’s superior outcomes over existing regimens.
-- We hope the data, which will be submitted for peer review, will lead to WHO to change recommendations for MDR-TB treatment.

All (100%) of people living with HIV newly started on antiretroviral therapy should receive either tuberculosis (TB) preventive treatment (blue bar) or TB treatment (orange bar)—together, they represent “optimal TB care”. The green bar shows the percentage of people newly started on antiretroviral therapy who did not receive optimal TB care and are vulnerable to falling ill or dying from TB.

PRETORIA (24 March 2021) — On World TB Day, as society reflects on how COVID-19 became the world’s most lethal infection in the span of a year, progress against tuberculosis (TB) can be found in the swift rollout of a short, all-oral regimen for highly drug-resistant TB infections.