22 June 2013 - Kigali, Rwanda - Representatives of civil society and communities affected by tuberculosis (TB) have demanded inclusion and greater engagement in the activities and governance structure of the Africa Region of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (the Union).

MUMBAI: Shasikala Sawant (name changed), a 22-year-old government worker, lived for barely six months after being diagnosed with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) in a clinic near her Vasai house.

The high price of the GeneXpert platform and test is the main barrier to the sustainable scale-up of the technology.

Anshu Prakash is worried about what he calls "mischievous propaganda" by "some people" who he thinks are misleading reporters. The joint secretary at the ministry of health and family welfare starts off by flatly denying that the joint monitoring mission (JMM) set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the government of India (GoI) discussed the impending danger of a TB drugs stock-out in August 2012.

The session is titled "Totally Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis: Can we afford a post-antibiotic world?" and session details are online at: www.wcsj2013.org/tuff-topics-totally-drug-resistant-tuberculosis-afford-post-antibiotic-world/.

Patients, TB organisations, treatment providers, medical practitioners, health NGOs, public interest groups, and treatment activists urge the Indian Prime Minister to take immediate steps to urgently address the issues of drug stockouts in India's TB programme.

Aspiration for TasP should not distract attention from the quality of HIV programming, the effectiveness of the HIV care cascade, and the need for inclusion of other HIV prevention interventions and other TB prevention measures.

A third of all new cases of TB in Africa are thought to be related to the mining industry.

Durban, 20 June 2013 – The medical organization Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) today released new evidence at the 6th South African AIDS Conference in Durban on early success using the high-strength antibiotic, linezolid as part of a treatment regimen for patients with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). This is some of the first clinical data from both an African and primary care context suggesting that linezolid is safe and effective for treating patients with XDR-TB, including those co-infected with HIV.