16 October 2013 - Johannesburg - The GBCHealth African Regional Conference opened today, aiming to stimulate increased private sector engagement in major health challenges, including tuberculosis (TB) in the mining sector.

The Union will kick off the 44th Union World Conference on Lung Health with a gala fundraising dinner to be held on Wednesday, 30 October, in Paris, France. The 2nd President's Centennial Dinner is raising funds for education and research as part of The Union Centennial Campaign (1920-2020). 

October 14, 2013, ROCKVILLE, MD – Aeras has been awarded Best Cause-Related Video for its film series, EXPOSED: The Race Against Tuberculosis by PR Daily. The PR Daily Digital PR award winners include some of the most recognized names in public relations and communications from around the world. The EXPOSED series also won an honorable mention under “Best Digital PR Campaign – Nonprofit Sector.”

India’s patent laws balance producer and consumer interest. Big Pharma would like that to change, to beat back generic competition.

The new paradigm in TB treatment focuses on using existing drugs and evaluating them in combination to develop better, shorter regimens.

One of the biggest news stories at the AIDS Vaccine 2013 conference was the groundbreaking experiment in which half of a group of monkeys given a candidate monkey-HIV vaccine appeared to lose all trace of viral infection. This vaccine used genes from simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the monkey equivalent of HIV, contained in the shell of cytomegalovirus (CMV) – a ubiquitous virus from the herpes virus family.

On the morning of 1st October, 2013, the very first plan of its kind was launched toward the goal of zero deaths in childhood TB. The launch was jointly brought about by the World Health Organization (WHO), International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), Stop TB Partnership, UNICEF and other partners, bringing out of the shadows this disease in children, which has been neglected so far.

It was a indeed a humbling experience for me to meet Ajay, a middle aged graduate from Muzzafarnagar, UP. Ajay was one of the rare cases of extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) who had tested negative, but was still under treatment, and recovering in the MDR-TB Ward of Rajan Babu Institute of Pulmonary Medicine and Tuberculosis (RBIPMT), New Delhi, when I spoke to him (or rather he insisted that he speak to me) in February, 2013.  He was very keen to share his agonizing experiences with the rest of the world so that others would not suffer the same fate as his due to ignorance about diagnosis and treatment of TB.

Quarterly status report featuring important news and working group updates, conference and workshop information, and links to resources, papers, and publications.

An open letter from civil society, academics and experts supports a number of proposed reforms in the Draft National Policy on Intellectual Property, and offers specific recommendations for further improvements.