During a panel discussion of the United Nations High-level Meeting on TB held in New York City on 22 September 2023, Professor Mark Hatherill, the director at the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) based at the University of Cape Town (UCT), called for a quantum jump in TB vaccine research and development (R&D) funding, to deliver the transformative tools needed to end the TB pandemic.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) released a report providing an overview of the dynamics and geographical distribution of rifampicin-resistant (RR)- and multidrug-resistant (MDR) Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA), focussing on the strains isolated in 2020−2022, and comparing this with whole genome sequencing data collected in 2017−2019 as a part of an EU/EEA pilot project on TB molecular surveillance.

20 September 2023 | New York The World Health Organization (WHO) has released Operational guidance for countries to support the  adaptation and implementation of the Multisectoral Accountability Framework to end TB (MAF-TB). It provides practical advice on key approaches and interventions needed to establish the MAF-TB at the national and local levels with concrete country examples and best practices.

21 October 2021 -- Data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) indicates that cases of TB in England increased by 7% in the first half of 2023 compared to the same timeframe in 2022, with 2,408 notifications compared to 2,251 in the first 2 quarters of 2022.

New Delhi, 01/Oct/2023: In an unusual repetition of sorts, the Union health ministry issued a press release on Sunday, October 1, denying any shortages of essential medicines for drug-resistant TB patients. It was only on September 26 that the ministry issued an almost similar statement.

The rates of tuberculosis (TB) recurrence and mortality in people with HIV in eastern Europe remain concerningly high and continue to be a clinical and public health challenge, according to a paper published in AIDS. In the first study to report on long-term follow-up of TB/HIV co-infected patients in eastern Europe, one in seven people had TB again and over half died.

The decision is intended to assure current and future generic manufacturers that they may manufacture and sell generic versions of SIRTURO® without a concern that the Company will enforce its bedaquiline patents, provided the generic versions of SIRTURO® are of good quality, medically acceptable, and are used only in the 134 low- and middle-income countries.

Unitaid calls on Johnson & Johnson to drop secondary patents for the drug-resistant TB medicine bedaquiline, and to make negotiated rates with the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility available to all countries, regardless of how they purchase drugs.

MENLO PARK, Calif., Sep. 26, 2023 -- AN2 Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ANTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for rare, chronic, and serious infectious diseases with high unmet needs, today announced that it has received a research grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to discover novel, boron containing small molecules for the treatment of tuberculosis and malaria. Funding from the Gates Foundation will support the discovery of novel inhibitors of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases using AN2’s proprietary boron chemistry platform. AN2’s boron chemistry has the potential to address biological targets for tuberculosis and malaria that build on the scientific expertise of several AN2 scientists that were involved in discovering novel leucyl-tRNA synthetase inhibitors including epetraborole, tavaborole, as well as ganfeborole, which is currently in development for tuberculosis. AN2’s boron chemistry platform has demonstrated success against leucyl- tRNA synthetase, a target that has proven difficult to inhibit using traditional medicinal chemistry approaches.

Tuberculosis is old—ancient even. The infectious bacterial disease that plagued Old Testament Israelites and took down pharaohs was eventually stunted by vaccinations, antibiotics, and public health measures like isolation—but it hasn’t been cured yet. More than a million people around the world still die from TB every year.