STONY BROOK, NY, January 19, 2012 – Professor Iwao Ojima, Director of the Institute of Chemical Biology & Drug Discovery (ICB&DD) and a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Stony Brook University, recently announced a multi-year research collaboration with Sanofi, a multinational pharmaceutical company, on a potential treatment for Tuberculosis (TB) and other bacterial infections.

This edition of HATIP looks at the relationship between strengthening of laboratory diagnostic capacity and intensified case finding for TB in people living with HIV.

LIMA, Peru — Stories about a dozen patients with “totally drug-resistant” tuberculosis in India have been reported around the world during the past week, setting off haggling among TB experts about whether these reports were true.

In a January 17 statement, India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare "dismissed reports that a form of incurable tuberculosis [TB] has arrived in the country," saying "that a team of doctors sent by the ministry found that seven of the patients are responding to treatment" and the cases would be classified and managed as extremely drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), Nature News Blog reports (Jayaraman, 1/19).

Tuberculosis (TB) has been suspected to increase a person's risk of lung cancer because the pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis can induce genetic damage. However, direct evidence of specific genetic changes and the disease have not been extensively reported.

SINGAPORE: Over the last five years, 1,380 Singapore residents were diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) and majority of them are adults.

An intensive high-level courses on TB diagnosis research will take place at the University of Cape Town from 6-9 March 2012 and repeated at McGill University from 9-13 July 2012.

The public health scare over totally drug resistant TB ended on a fruitful note for the city - Mumbai will be the site of an ambitious pilot project to combat tuberculosis in an urban setting.

Under National TB Control Programme, Pakistan is required to cut down the rate of annual TB incidences and mortality rate from Tuberculosis by 50 per cent in the year 2015 and achievement of the TB free country by the year 2050.

USAID has thrown a lifeline to the close to 600 tuberculosis (TB) patients at the Penduka Namibia programme in Katutura.