The KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) will open a 40,000 square feet research building in Durban, South Africa, next month (October) — the latest example of a trend of pouring investment into fighting Africa's HIV epidemic, according to experts.

Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR-TB) is a strain of TB which is resistant to the two most powerful known anti-TB drugs, requiring intensive and careful management if patients stand a chance of recovery.

Starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the early stage of treatment for tuberculosis (TB) resulted in a significantly higher rate of TB immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) in Durban, South Africa. People who started ART early during TB therapy also had more severe IRIS and a longer time to IRIS resolution.

Treating tuberculosis with corticosteroids before antiretroviral therapy (ART) in HIV-positive South Africans lowered levels of several inflammatory markers, while severe vitamin D deficiency was associated with higher inflammatory marker levels regardless of whether TB immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) developed.

Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries will not have the funds required to aggressively tackle their TB and HIV epidemics.

Researchers Patricia A. Champion and Matthew Champion from the University of Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health have developed a method to directly detect bacterial protein secretion, which could provide new insights into a variety of diseases including tuberculosis.

Statement by Dr Lucica Ditiu, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership and Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the WHO Stop TB Department in response to decisions on the Global Fund’s funding model made at its 27th Board Meeting.

A New Zealand-designed compound that shows promise against treatment-resistance tuberculosis (TB) has been selected as a drug candidate by international non-profit drug developer the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance).

HEIDELBERG, 17 September 2012 – A natural product secreted by a soil bacterium shows promise as a new drug to treat tuberculosis report scientists in a new study published in EMBO Molecular Medicine. A team of scientists working in Switzerland has shown how pyridomycin, a natural antibiotic produced by the bacterium Dactylosporangium fulvum, works. This promising drug candidate is active against many of the drug-resistant types of the tuberculosis bacterium that no longer respond to treatment with the front-line drug isoniazid.

The question the tuberculosis community is anxiously posing is whether, in addition to existing drugs, the most promising compounds in the development pipeline are as effective as preliminary studies suggested.