Global funding for COVID-19 vaccine development has exceeded 10 times in less than a year the amount allocated for HIV and TB research and development in 11 years.

5 February 2021 | GENEVA - The critical concentrations for culture-based phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (DST) to first-line anti-TB drugs have been revised by the the World Health Organization (WHO). Critical concentrations for rifampicin have been lowered while those for isoniazid have been maintained at the present level. This update helps address the discordance observed between phenotypic and molecular methods to detect rifampicin resistance and improves the accuracy of DST. As a result patients with TB will have a more accurate  diagnosis.

South Africa's first National TB prevalance survey 2018 was released on Friday, 5 February, by the National Department of Health and its partners. The survey data was collected from August 2017 to July 2019 in over 110 clusters in all nine provinces.

The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IJTLD) is the official publication of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union).

The Clock Is Ticking
There are now less than two years left to fulfill the promises and take action on the commitments made at the UN High-Level Meeting on TB in 2018.

-- Tajikistan becomes the second country in the world to try out the BPaL regimen
-- WHO recommends the novel treatment under operational research conditions
-- New drug regimen is easy to use and more affordable

-- Fixed-dose combination treatments reduce the pill burden from nine to three pills a week for adults and prevent TB in those at highest risk of developing the disease

-- Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe will be the first countries out of a total of 12 to provide the new regimen at a US$15 price thanks to funding from Unitaid, PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Tuberculosis is an age-old respiratory scourge, with a new twist: growing resistance to multiple first- and second-line drugs. UF researchers and physicians report on using a novel treatment to slash treatment time — and cure — a patient with extensively drug-resistant TB.

TB Alliance to leverage ZebiAI’s platform to discover novel probe compounds for important tuberculosis targets, with options for drug discovery.

RESIST-TB released its January 2021 newsletter with the latest research publications on drug-resistant TB.