Items tagged with TB epidemiology

COVID-19 has diverted scientific attention from killer diseases like TB: Harsh Vardhan (post)

The molecular diagnostic capacity of the country has increased multi-fold. These multi-platform devices based on cartridge and chip-based technology can decentralise TB diagnosis, the minister said.

Rising tuberculosis cases could soon lead to an epidemic in Nepal, experts say (post)

They warn that misdiagnosis and under-reporting of TB cases could spread the infection further.

TB: Experts advocate community involvement as deaths exceed 0.1 million in Nigeria (post)

As this year winds down, more than 100,000 would have lost their lives to tuberculosis, according to the global TB statistic from the World Health Organization.

WHO reveals leading causes of death and disability worldwide: 2000-2019 (post)

Noncommunicable diseases now make up 7 of the world’s top 10 causes of death, according to WHO’s 2019 Global Health Estimates, published today. This is an increase from 4 of the 10 leading causes in 2000. The new data cover the period from 2000 to 2019 inclusive.

Department of Health releases South Africa’s first TB prevalence survey (post)

South Africa's first National TB prevalance survey 2018 was released on Friday, 5 February, by the National Department of Health and its partners. The survey data was collected from August 2017 to July 2019 in over 110 clusters in all nine provinces.

TB testing gap among people living with HIV is narrowing (post)

The risk of developing tuberculosis among the 38 million people living with HIV in 2019 was 18 times higher than in the rest of the world’s population. Tuberculosis remains the single largest cause of premature death among people living with HIV.

TB epidemiology: Belarus, Papua New Guinea (post)

Ancient DNA reveals clues about how TB shaped the human immune system (post)

COVID-19 is only the latest infectious disease to have had an outsized impact on human life. A new study employing ancient human DNA reveals how tuberculosis has affected European populations over the past 2,000 years, specifically the impact that disease has had on the human genome. This work, which publishes March 4 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, has implications for studying not only evolutionary genetics, but also how genetics can influence the immune system.

TB outbreaks in schools: experiences from the Western Pacific Region (post)

The World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific released a report summarizing current evidence on TB outbreaks in schools and contextualizing the information within the Western Pacific Region. Case studies from four countries highlighted the diverse range of experiences in the Region. As many countries have minimal experience in preventing and responding to TB outbreaks in schools, evidence from past outbreaks and case studies from a few countries could inform future responses.

Study on TB in Africa reveals a new lineage in the eastern part of the continent (post)

Mireia Coscollá, a researcher at the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), a joint centre of the University of Valencia and the Spanish National Research Council, has led a study on the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, one of the 10 deadliest diseases in the world, which proves the existence of a new lineage. After analysing 675 African genomes in an article published in the journal Microbial Genomics, he concludes that the new lineage, named L9, is located mainly in the eastern part of the continent.