For decades, researchers have tried to develop broadly effective vaccines to prevent the spread of illnesses such as HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis. While limited progress has been made along these lines, there are still no licensed vaccinations available that can protect most people from these devastating diseases.

President Obama signed an Executive Order directing key Federal departments and agencies to take action to combat the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Summary

The most feared consequence of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis in infants and young children is tuberculous meningitis. In the 1930s, researchers established that infants and young children are particularly susceptible to tuberculous meningitis, and that it is the major cause of tuberculosis-related childhood death (1, 2). The numbers of deaths due to tuberculous meningitis worldwide each year are unknown because of difficulties in diagnosis and under-reporting of tuberculosis in children, especially when infection causes early death. However, tuberculous meningitis is probably a major contributor to the estimated 200 or more child deaths every day due to tuberculosis worldwide (3). Furthermore, as other common causes of meningitis in infants and children become less common with the rollout of effective bacterial conjugate vaccines, M tuberculosis becomes relatively more important as a preventable and treatable pathogen causing death and disability due to bacterial meningitis in children (4—6).

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infects a third of the world's population every year, causing 8·6 million new cases and 1·3 million deaths annually (1).BCG, a live-attenuated bacterial vaccine developed in the 1920s, is still used to vaccinate most children worldwide. Although BCG protects infants from severe disseminated disease, it cannot prevent infection. Especially in developing countries, pulmonary tuberculosis can develop mostly during adolescence, and has a high mortality rate in patients who are co-infected with HIV. So far, the development of vaccines that outperform BCG has been difficult.

Experts at LSTM have used a novel modelling approach to project the effects of new diagnostic methods and algorithms for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) recently endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), looking at the patient, health system and population perspective in Tanzania.

Researchers working in the UK and The Gambia, have developed a new approach to the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) that relies on direct sequencing of DNA extracted from sputum (a technique called metagenomics) to detect and characterize the bacteria that cause TB without the need for time-consuming culture of bacteria in the laboratory.

New multi-year grant continues work to study pressing public health crisis

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian patients were left without drugs for treatment, when government did not manage to conduct tenders for 80% of drug purchases under the state health programmes, the joint press release from prominent patients organisations in Ukraine informs.

25 September 2014 - Geneva, Switzerland - UNITAID is pleased to announce the third Call for Letters of Intent (LOI) of its 2013-2016 strategic period, details for which are available here.