The European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has been actively contributing to the new WHO action plan on multi-drug and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (M/XDR TB) covering the WHO European Region of 53 countries.

The next in a series of interviews with staff members at the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, Science Speaks interviewed Senior Technical Officer Bill Coggin. As co-chair of the interagency TB/HIV technical working group, Coggin works on the PEPFAR’s annual TB/HIV guidance and technical considerations for the field, as well as technical reviews of the annual Country Operational Plans (COPs). He is also the technical officer for supply chain management responsible for the PEPFAR pooled procurement mechanism. In this interview, Coggin speaks to the way he got involved in global health, HIV/TB program funding priorities and how PEPFAR continues to squeeze the most out of every dollar it spends.

A new natural defense mechanism against infections has been evidenced by an international team led by researchers from CNRS, Inserm, the Institut Pasteur and the Université Paul Sabatier - Toulouse III. Zinc, a heavy metal that is toxic at high doses, is used by the cells of the immune system to destroy microbes such as the tuberculosis bacillus or E. coli. Published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe on 14 September 2011, this discovery makes it possible to envisage new therapeutic strategies and test new vaccine candidates.

After a six-month review of the financial systems at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a seven-member independent panel "recommended a substantial overhaul Monday in the grant organization's practices," the Wall Street Journal reports. The panel, led by former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt and former Botswana President Festus Mogae, "said in a report the fund must improve risk management, simplify grant application processes, and place greater emphasis on results," according to the newspaper.

A review of the organization's priorities in discovering, developing, and making available faster and more affordable drug regimens to cure TB.

European and African research organisations are gearing up to improve and strengthen collaboration in tuberculosis (TB) vaccine research. Over ten institutions from both continents will create a network where knowledge on clinical trials will be exchanged, joint activities can be explored and coordinated, and where clinical trials capacity will be improved. This month the network has received a budget of 765,000 euros.

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Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly contagious disease which kills 4,700 people each day, the vast majority in the developing world.

It all starts with a cough. A woman covers her mouth and then shakes hands with a man next to her on a plane. He infects 10 others. Everyone gets horribly sick. They are given medicine but it has no effect. Three of them die.

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