An interdisciplinary team of Dutch researchers has discovered that wasting syndrome, a severe byproduct of tuberculosis, is the same for all humans and animals studied. The discovery offers new opportunities to investigate the still insufficiently understood condition. The scientists also developed a promising method for diagnosing and possibly even predicting tuberculosis.

A specific combination of HIV and TB treatments, difficult to obtain in certain parts of the world, decreased mortality risk for patients with HIV and multidrug-resistant TB.

Researchers have managed to show exactly how the tuberculosis bacterium kills its host cell by filming the process in detail for the first time. Every year, 1.5 million people die of TB. To watch the clips, click here.

The BCG vaccine, a vaccine originally made against tuberculosis, has a general stimulating effect on the immune system and is therefore effective against multiple infectious diseases—possibly also against COVID-19. This study compared groups of volunteers who have received a BCG vaccine (or not) in the past five years (before the corona pandemic), showing that the vaccine is safe and possibly influences COVID-19 symptoms.

TB kills 1.5 million people each year. Lockdowns and supply-chain disruptions threaten progress against the disease as well as HIV and malaria.

TAG and OTMeds call on Sanofi to reverse its efforts to patent two obvious combinations of two critical drugs to prevent TB: rifapentine and isoniazid.

A comment in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine and an article in Science reflect on the South Africa's COVID-19 response and the way it affects the response to HIV and TB in the country.

Pretomanid, developed by the non-profit TB Alliance, has received EU marketing authorisation in combination regimen with bedaquiline and linezolid in adults with XDR-TB or treatment-intolerant/non-responsive MDR-TB.

Targeted interventions need to be shifted to patients with minimal TB symptoms in vulnerable communities, South Africa researchers say in a new study.