NEW DELHI, India — Facing nearly 2 million new tuberculosis cases every year — more and more of them drug-resistant — India has a bigger stake in finding a better treatment for TB than any other country.

While scientists have made progress to advance the development pipeline for a new tuberculosis vaccine in South Africa, more advances has been stalled by several gaps and challenges.

Professor Heather Zar is the head of paediatrics and child health at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and the University of Cape Town. As a clinician scientist, her research addresses the leading causes of childhood illness and death: tuberculosis (TB), pneumonia, HIV-associated respiratory illness­ and asthma. The output from this research has influenced child health globally, improving diagnostic, preventative and management strategies.

WASHINGTON, DC—Mario Raviglione has been the director of the World Health Organization’s Stop TB Department since 2003. He spoke with John Donnelly about his frustrations with detecting cases of multidrug-resistant TB as well as the slowness in the use of the GeneXpert machine, which can detect drug-resistant TB in two hours, compared to two months from older tests.

Last week, TB advocates from across Europe and Central Asia, ranging from Belgium to Kazakhstan, gathered in London for the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease conference to make their voices heard and to exchange experiences and best practices.

The “Washington, D.C. Declaration,” which seeks to build broad support for beginning to end the AIDS epidemic through a 9-point action plan, will be the official declaration of the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) to take place in Washington, D.C. from 22 to 27 July 2012.

Jonathan Golub, an associate professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, is the winner of this year’s International AIDS Society TB/HIV Prize.

HIV & AIDS treatment in practice (HATIP) is a regular email newsletter for healthcare workers and community-based organisations on HIV treatment in resource-limited settings.

The final report of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law presents a coherent and compelling evidence base on human rights and legal issues relating to HIV.

The report describes existing TB diagnostics and the pipeline of expected future methods and tools; characterizes unmet needs and the extent to which the pipeline may address these; and highlights areas of persisting market shortcomings.