The global health community has been abuzz with news that the new malaria vaccine, which has been in the development phase for over two decades, appears to greatly reduce the risk of malaria in children in Africa. Yet this exciting success story is just one of nearly 90 promising new medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic techniques stuck in the tangled clinical trials process. What is more, if the clinical trials process doesn't improve it could be years before many of those drugs ever get through the complicated testing process to reach the one billion people in the developing world who suffer from neglected diseases like TB and Dengue Fever. How many malaria deaths could have been prevented if only the clinical trials process had been improved sooner?

Tuberculosis, which kills over 2 million people each year, is caused primarily by infectious bacteria known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis – or Mtb. Mtb targets human immune cells as part of its strategy to avoid detection, effectively neutralizing the body's immune response.

(Durban, SOUTH AFRICA,) The TB Alliance today announced the launch of a collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) to conduct and help complete a Phase III clinical trial testing potentially faster-acting tuberculosis (TB) treatments. Few clinical trials for TB have been conducted under modern GCP/GCLP standards in the past 40 years, and the infrastructure to support invigorated global TB drug research is lacking, especially in resource-limited settings where the majority of TB cases are found. The partnership between the NIAID’s ACTG and TB Alliance joins available resources with the urgent need for TB clinical research capacity to accelerate testing of new therapies that can benefit both the HIV/AIDS and TB communities.

North Korea is grappling with a strain of the deadly lung disease tuberculosis that is resistant to conventional treatment. Humanitarian workers say the impoverished communist country, which already has one of the highest rates of tuberculosis outside of sub-Saharan Africa, is unable to cope with the outbreak.  Most victims could die of the disease within years. But some help is coming from an outside foundation.

Poor adherence may not be enough to cause multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, a laboratory study published in the online edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases suggests.

A study led by Frank Cobelens of the Amsterdam Institute of Global Health and Development, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and colleagues reports on the cost-effectiveness of implementing the Xpert MTB/RIF diagnostic test for tuberculosis (TB) in high burden countries. Based on their findings, which are published in this week's PLoS Medicine, the authors predict that Xpert will be a cost-effective method of TB diagnosis, compared with current standard techniques, in low- and middle-income countries.

Europe's health is suffering, with around 80,000 cases of tuberculosis infection a year and serious problems with measles, HIV and threats from "superbug" infections, an annual health report on the region said Thursday.

• AstraZeneca, Bayer, Sanofi, Tibotec, TB Alliance, and the World Health Organization sign partnership to share information on TB drugs in development
• FDA’s Dr. Janet Woodcock keynotes CPTR Workshop and highlights the need for regulatory science to advance regimen development for life-threatening diseases.

The 17^th Core Group Meeting of the TB/HIV Working Group kicked off in Beijing China with opening remarks from Dr. Yu Jingin, director of the Disease Control Bureau of the China Ministry of Health, and Dr. Wang You, director of the China Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Around one third of the world population is estimated to be infected with the TB bacterium and is at risk of developing the disease. There were 8.8 million new cases of TB in 2010 and the disease killed a staggering 1.4 million people.