Treatment Action Group (TAG) launches the first TB chapter of its 2022 Pipeline Report.

SAN ANTONIO (October 17, 2022) – Mirroring the all-hands-on-deck collaborative approach that accelerated the development of a variety of COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic, the National Institutes of Health is seeking to spark similar innovation for a longstanding, intractable disease: tuberculosis. As part of this national push, NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases awarded Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) and The Access to Advanced Health Institute (AAHI) in Seattle, Washington, a $3.5 million, five-year Innovation for Tuberculosis Vaccine Discovery grant.

On 28 September 2022, the Global TB Caucus held its third Platform of Experts meeting on the theme of TB in Migration. Growing migration is an overall global trend, but the numbers have spiked in Europe due to the war in Ukraine. Across the board, consistent points of concern for migrants are access to healthcare, follow-through on treatment, and the double stigma they face: as migrants, and as people who may be more vulnerable to TB.

RESIST-TB will host a webinar on 24 October 2022 'Choosing TB regimens to advance to late-stage clinical trials: Using interim (Bayesian) analyses to increase likelihood of success'.

14 October 2022 | Geneva: World Food Day this year is being commemorated in a world with increasing global food insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and international conflicts. The World Food Programme estimates that globally, up to 828 million people do not have enough food and 50 million face emergency levels of hunger. Undernutrition is one of the most significant drivers of tuberculosis, accounting for an estimated 19% of incident TB in 2020, worldwide. People with undernutrition are three times more likely to develop TB disease and undernutrition is a common consequence of TB. Undernutrition also worsens TB treatment outcomes and increases the risk of dying from TB.

SEATTLE (Friday, October 14, 2022) – People living with HIV must be included in clinical trials for new tuberculosis vaccine candidates currently in the development pipeline, say experts on an international panel convened last year to address gaps in the current TB vaccine landscape.

13 October 2022 | Geneva: A meeting of a subgroup of WHO’s Global Task Force on TB Impact Measurement was held in Geneva on 28–29 September to review draft content that has been developed for the new guidance on national TB prevalence surveys. The meeting brought together global experts in the design, implementation, analysis and/or reporting of national TB prevalence surveys, including people from national TB programmes, universities, national institutes and technical agencies, as well as independent consultants. Content related to screening and diagnostic algorithms, case definitions, diagnostic investigations, documents and data management, chest radiography and clinical management was discussed. Planned next steps include the update and finalization of the document with the targeted publication date in mid-2023.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), remains a leading infectious threat to public health worldwide. It is estimated to have infected 2–3 billion people and causes ~1.5 million deaths each year.

Tuberculosis can be tough to detect. Diagnosis usually requires coughing up a sputum sample from the lungs, which can be unpleasant, impractical, and even hazardous. But in a promising new study, a multinational team of researchers may have found another way to identify the bacterial disease.

The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease released Diagnostic CXR Atlas for Tuberculosis in Children Image Library.