TB Alert

A new study, published in Nature Communications, has charted the rise of drug-resistant TB from the early days of antibiotic treatment to today’s looming public health emergency. The study reconstructs the timeline of antimicrobial resistance acquisition during an outbreak of multi drug-resistant TB in Argentina. The strain that was responsible was found to have developed resistance to isoniazid, […]

Priority for Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG) immunisation is to be given to children considered to be most at risk of tuberculosis, after Public Health England (PHE) announced delays in the supply line. New stocks of the vaccine are expected to be received at the end of May. BCG is a key part of the neonatal vaccination programme, and is […]

TB Alert is looking for an International Programme Officer to contribute to the development, management and monitoring of our projects in India and southern Africa, alongside our International Programme Director. We focus on: mobilising communities and building the capacity of local NGOs, communities and patient activists to raise awareness of TB and TB-HIV; increasing access to and […]

Scientists from Ohio State University, have created a new tissue culture model that recreates the development of granuloma – protective immune cells that gather around a cluster of TB bacteria – by adding TB bacterial cells to human white blood cell samples. The model demonstrates both how people are protected from disease during latent TB […]

Hundreds of mummified bodies, found in a church crypt in Hungary, are helping epidemiologists explain how TB spread in the past. Samples from the mummies have revealed that multiple tuberculosis strains derived from a single Roman ancestor that circulated in 18th-century Europe. The individuals, many of them wealthy Catholics, had been placed fully clothed in coffins […]

The 1st Eastern Partnership Ministerial Conference on Tuberculosis and Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis will be available to stream live on 30–31 March 2015 from the TB Europe Coalition website. The multi-stakeholder high-level conference is hosted under the Latvian presidency of the Council of the European Union, in cooperation with WHO Europe, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and […]

An article in the Nursing Times explains how all nurses are essential to TB control and elimination. Though TB patients are cared for by specialist nurses, all front line nurses may encounter TB – especially those who work with high-risk populations, such as migrants, substance users, homeless people and patients who are HIV positive. These nurses are […]

Local authority leaders, in areas with high rates of TB or Hepatitis C infection, were called together by the Minister for Public Health, Jane Ellison, to examine actions and interventions to address the two diseases. The minister outlined the similarities between the two diseases; including their links to health inequalities and challenges relating to ensuring […]

A new report by the TB Europe Coalition, “After Aid: What is next for TB and HIV in Europe”, examines the potential consequences for TB in Europe as key international donors withdraw support for European TB programmes, to refocus efforts on lower-income countries with a higher disease burden. “I am very worried. I had to […]

Startling new data has predicted that by 2050, 75 million people could lose their lives to multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) at a cost of €15.6 trillion to the global economy—the equivalent of the entire annual economic output of the European Union. These projections were originally produced for the independent Review on Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) and […]