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

Tuberculosis (TB) disproportionately affects vulnerable populations including those with limited economic resources, HIV patients, those whose diet is deficient in nutrients and others. Resistant TB (MDR TB) does not respond to first line medications and is difficult to treat, requiring long regimens of 15-20 months that are associated with significant side effects and poor outcomes.

Socios En Salud Centro de Salud Global and partners will host a webinar on 3 August 2023 highlighting the 1/4/6x24 Campaign, examining the experience of the Dominican Republic in rolling out WHO-recommended shorter TB preventive therapy and treatment regimens, with perspectives from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ministry of Health, civil society, and Dr. Carole Mitnick presenting on the 1/4/6x24 Campaign. The webinar will be offered with Spanish-English simultaneous interpretation.

TB is the second most infectious deadly disease after COVID-19, so why has it been met with political inertia? Vinny Wooding, Senior Parliamentary Advocacy Officer at RESULTS UK, discusses the burden of TB and the rapid action needed to address this global threat.

A report, released by RESULTS UK, makes the case for accountability within the global TB response, highlighting the lack of progress against the 2018 global commitments and the role of accountability within these commitments.

25 July 2023 | Geneva --Targeted next generation sequencing (NGS) for the detection of drug-resistant TB is a new class of diagnostic technology. It provides an option for rapid and accurate genetic analysis and detection of mutations associated with resistance in a fraction of the time required for culture-based methods for detecting resistance. Various commercially available “End-to-End” tests for targeted NGS have become available in recent years that can detect resistance to multiple drugs simultaneously, provide rapid results with testing directly on patient samples, and have the potential to assimilate new information on genetic markers for resistance as they become known.

The Stop TB Partnership Board called for expressions of interest to join the newly formed constituency of TB Key and Vulnerable Populations. It is foreseen that the new members will select their Board members and alternate Board members in Q3 2023.

A recent study published in the Scientific Reports Journal examined immune responses in treatment-naive individuals with early-stage active pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) without clinical TB history. The researchers identified a potential immune biomarker associated with pulmonary TB in active patients compared to controls.

Data included in this analysis are from the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe study, and they include asthma status, asthma-like symptoms, and other respiratory symptoms.

• People living in close contact with a person with TB disease are at highest risk of infection, and account for a significant percentage of the 10.6 million new TB infections each year. 
• Analysis shows that implementing a combined strategy of identifying household contacts and providing TB preventive treatment is cost-effective and would cut deaths by 35%  among household contacts of all ages and people living with HIV by 2035. 
• Additionally, because TB diagnosis is so low among children under five – just over 3 in 10 children with TB are identified – contact tracing and prevention would have an outsized impact on reducing child death from TB. 
• TB prevention and contact tracing can be delivered cost effectively thanks, in part, to the significant price reductions in short-course therapy achieved in recent years. With further decreases in price and by improving the efficiency and integration of contact tracing into disease responses, the intervention could benefit from greater cost savings and public health benefit. 
• As world leaders prepare for the second United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB this September, up-front multi-stakeholder commitment and financial backing is urgently needed to reap the massive rewards of preventing TB illness and death.

19 July 2023, Johannesburg/Geneva – A new study published today in The Lancet Global Health found that the lives of 850,000 people could be saved by 2035 if short-course tuberculosis (TB) preventive treatment is provided to people living with HIV and contacts of individuals newly diagnosed with TB. 700,000 of those lives saved would be among children aged 15 years and younger.