Programme manager for the National Leprosy and Tuberculosis Control Programme NLTCP in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation has confirmed to Concord Times that 12,943 cases of tuberculosis TB infections were recorded in different parts of the country last year.

Open letter to the Medicines Control Council of South Africa regarding compassionate use of bedaquiline for drug-resistant tuberculosis in South Africa.

Open letter to the Medicines Control Council and Ministry of Health on urgent need for compassionate use of bedaquiline for XDR-TB and pre-XDR-TB in South Africa.

HIV-positive adults with active tuberculosis when starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania had a similar death rate as people without active TB 48 weeks after treatment began.

People with HIV reduce their overall risk of tuberculosis (TB) by starting antiretroviral therapy, an international team of investigators report in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Despite this, the risk of the disease increased in the first three months of HIV treatment, especially for older people and those with a low CD4 cell count. For severely immunosuppressed people, the risk of TB remained increased in the longer term.

Infection by the TB infectious agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis can exist within the human body as a contained latent infection, active disease, or be eradicated by the host immunological response.  TB diagnostics are required to categorize a patient into one of these categories.  However, case detection remains difficult today due to inaccurate diagnostic methods and confounding factors such as HIV infection, immunosuppressive therapies, anti-tuberculosis treatments, drug-resistant TB bacteria strains and poorly understood other factors[1].  Modern-day TB diagnostic tools in developed countries are neither appropriate nor affordable for resource-poor environments.  National TB programs in disease-endemic countries still rely on older and inaccurate methods for confirming TB in patients.  Without correct diagnosis of a patient’s condition, there is lower probability that appropriate medical treatment will be provided and effect a cure of the disease.

Rising poverty, overcrowded public transport, and sprawling slums threaten to reverse the gains made in eradicating tuberculosis (TB) in Egypt, experts say.

Up to 30% of the world's population is infected with Tuberculosis (TB), but in many areas of the world, TB diagnosis still relies on insensitive, poorly standardized, and time-consuming methods. A new diagnostic tool, endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), may change that. Dr. Thomas Bodmer shows how it's done in the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE).