A simple breath test may one day show whether someone has a strain of tuberculosis that will respond to a frontline antibiotic, or a drug-resistant type, scientists said Tuesday (September 23).

New Delhi, Sept. 21: A drug routinely prescribed for tuberculosis could possibly make people vulnerable to repeat TB attacks by harming a key protective arm of the immune system, a study in India on laboratory mice suggests.

Summary Points

The high state of anxiety about the Ebola virus and its possible spread throughout Africa has caused fear in the world. Effective vaccines and medicines to prevent and treat Ebola do not yet exist. There are too few cases to make it profitable for pharmaceutical companies to invest in research and development (R&D), and at the end of the day those who are at risk are too poor to pay high prices.

In this week’s highly anticipated visit to the United States by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a number of joint statements have been issued, raising hope for greater cooperation between the two countries, and some concern about the same.

In this guest post, Claire Wingfield—product development policy officer at PATH—writes about a new paper exploring why research and development (R&D) of high-priority health tools for diseases and conditions affecting low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) should be a critical component of the post-2015 development agenda.

Here is a compilation of materials that cover training, implementation and monitoring and evaluation:

Researchers from Brown and MIT have shown new details about how a promising new class of antibiotics attacks the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. The research could provide a blueprint for developing drugs aimed at fighting TB.

A new PLOS Medicine collection, Monitoring Universal Health Coverage, was launched on 22 September at the Rockefeller Foundation as a side event of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Abstract