Public Health Action is the free access, online journal of The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. The journal focuses on TB, lung health, non-communicable diseases and related public health issues.

In March last year, I had written about the potential negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on tuberculosis (TB) services. I had expressed concern that TB services is might be one of the biggest casualties. A year later, the verdict is in: the pandemic has had a devastating impact on TB services. According to WHO, an estimated 1.4 million fewer people received necessary care for TB during 2020 compared with the previous year, because of Covid-19. According to the Stop TB Partnership, 12 months of Covid-19 eliminated 12 years of progress in the global fight against TB.

Cochrane Library releases updated Special Collection on diagnosing TB.

Although TB killed nearly as many people as COVID-19 (approx. 1.8 million) in 2020, it did not receive as much media and public attention. The pandemic has proven that transmissible infection is indeed a global issue. TB remains a serious public health concern in Ireland, particularly with the presence of multi-drug resistant types and the numbers of complex cases here continuing to rise, with cases numbering over 300 annually.

NEW YORK (March 23, 2021) – Interested researchers are invited to apply to access the MARK-TB (Markedly Accelerating Research with Knowledge of Tuberculosis Biomarkers) database of high-quality patient specimens from late-stage TB drug clinical trials. In making this repository available, MARK-TB is enabling the discovery and qualification of biomarkers to speed clinical development of improved tuberculosis (TB) treatments for both drug-sensitive and multidrug-resistant TB, as well as potentially improving the care of TB patients.

A considerably higher dose of the anti-tuberculosis drug rifampicin is safe and can also lead to a shorter treatment for tuberculosis and less resistance. This is what researchers from Radboud university medical center in Nijmegen write in a recent publication. With this they complete a year-long search for the right dosing of an old drug against tuberculosis that appears to be the key drug.

An estimated 1.4 million fewer people received care for TB in 2020 than in 2019 - a reduction of 21% from 2019, according to preliminary data compiled by the World Health Organization.

TB burden in the WHO European Region as a whole is decreasing. However, TB is second only to COVID-19 as an infectious disease that kills, and drug resistance is a major concern.

NEW YORK (March 18, 2021) — TB Alliance and GSK have agreed to extend their longstanding collaboration to discover new compounds that can improve the treatment of tuberculosis (TB).

Pandemic response pushed aside TB outreach and services, resulting in 20% drop in diagnosis and treatment worldwide, urgent recovery needed.