The immune response to the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB) varies between patients of different ethnic origin, raising important implications for the development of tests to diagnose and monitor treatment for the disease, according to new research published today in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

An analysis of available information indicates that research-oriented product development partnerships (PDPs) are seen as providing a better approach to neglected diseases than most other public-private partnerships. Yet, in spite of many positive results, PDPs still have a limited impact in developing countries.

It has been heralded as an important step in ending the threat of tuberculosis in the United States, and one with ramifications for countries with higher incidence of the disease: a new drug to treat TB infection before it causes illness, treat it more quickly than current regimens. With standard treatment consisting of daily pills for six to nine months, findings from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded trial that the addition of the drug rifapentine could shorten treatment to 12 once-weekly doses bettered the odds that more patients with latent tuberculosis could complete treatment that would rid them of TB bacteria.

Abstract (provisional)

Four-year-old Orion Qurbonaliev is lucky to be alive. Just last February, the little boy was lying comatose in the tuberculosis ward of a hospital in southern Tajikistan. The bacteria had spread to his spine and paralyzed the right side of his body. He was severely dehydrated and malnourished.

The world is struggling to cope with a growing epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Treatment is even more complicated for children.

An increasing number of Mumbaiites are being detected with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).

Re: Marketing and use of TB Platinum for active TB in India and high TB burden countries

Leading doctors, advocacy groups, medical organizations and U.S. TB programs call upon Sanofi to lower the price of rifapentine to ensure its accessibility and continue and expand its investments in the development of the drug for active TB.

MUMBAI: A 24-year-old Sion hospital doctor lost her six-month-old battle to multi-drug resistant tuberculosis of the brain on Sunday, the eve of Doctor's Day (July 1).