Everyone at TB Alert would like to wish the warmest congratulations to Professor Sir Alimuddin (Ali) Zumla, who has been awarded a Knighthood (KBE) in the Queen’s 2017 Birthday Honours for his exceptional services to Public Health and Infectious Diseases. Sir Zumla is Professor of Infectious Diseases and International Health at University College London (UCL) […]
New TB ethics guidance from WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched ethics guidance for TB to help protect the rights of affected communities worldwide. The guidance focuses particularly on the vulnerable communities who bear the greatest burden of TB: migrants; prisoners; ethnic minorities; miners; and marginalised women, children and older people. The guidance addresses issues such as isolation, the […]
UK International Development Secretary pledge to strengthen TB role
The International Development Secretary, Priti Patel, pledged to strengthen the UK’s role in the fight against TB and drug-resistance, in a speech yesterday at the Bond Annual Conference. During the speech, Ms Patel also renewed the UK’s commitment to overseas aid and set out DfID’s future priorities and ambitions. This included the announcement of a new partnership […]
Childhood TB epidemic unveiled in new review
The International Union Against Tuberculosis has described a review of childhood TB published in The Lancet as unveiling an overlooked epidemic. Over one million children fall ill with TB each year, and just 1 in 3 receive the life-saving treatment they need. The sad truth is that childhood TB is often considered a low priority in […]
Tackling TB in under-served populations – new guidance
‘Tackling Tuberculosis in Under-Served Populations: A Resource for TB Control Boards and their partners’ has been published today by Public Health England. The resource, which was produced in partnership with TB Alert, brings together information related to under-served populations (USPs) and TB in one place in order to support TB Control Boards and their partners to […]
UN General Assembly to hold historic High-Level Meeting on TB
The United Nations General Assembly will convene a historic High-Level Meeting (HLM) on TB with Heads of State, following a resolution endorsed by member states at the UN headquarters in New York. The campaign for the meeting was led by Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Chair of the of Stop TB Partnership Board and Minister of Health of […]
Call on leaders for a UN High-Level Meeting on TB
Tuberculosis is a hidden global emergency. TB is the leading cause of death from an infectious disease and causes 1.8 million deaths a year. Despite this, TB has a low profile on the global political agenda and hasn’t received the attention or resources it deserves. You can make a difference by making sure your MP is aware […]
Huge jump in TB deaths revealed by new data
WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2016 reveals the shocking news that more people are dying from TB each year than previously realised, up from 1.5 million deaths in 2014 to 1.8 million in 2015. That’s one death from TB every 20 seconds. The majority of these deaths are among the 4.3 million people with TB that, […]
Access, testing and treatment for latent tuberculosis
TB Alert has launched a new toolkit for new entrant latent tuberculosis programmes. The toolkit was developed by TB Alert, in partnership with Public Health England and NHS England, to be used locally to assist local programme leads as well as by individual providers involved in any part of the process. The toolkit assesses the three […]
Campfires and TB
The use of fire by early humans may have triggered the development of tuberculosis as a deadly disease, suggests a study at the University of New South Wales, Australia. A team of researchers investigated how Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is benign when it lives in soil and water, might have developed into a pathogen which is transmissible […]