Doctors at the Hinduja National Hospital and Research Centre in Mumbai, India, are reporting on a strain of tuberculosis (TB) emerging among patients that is resistant to all first- and second-line drugs used to treat the bacterial infection. At least twelve patients have been identified so far.  The doctors do not present evidence that the resistant strain is passing from human to human, and mostly focus on how TDR can develop in TB infected individuals due to poor treatment management.

Tuberculosis (TB) in children is often a neglected issue, in terms of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring prevalence. The best numbers we have are from the World Health Organization (WHO), according to Mandy Slutsker of ACTION, an international partnership of global health advocates. The WHO reported in 2009 that every year more than 1 million children get infected and about 176,000 die as a result. However, since most cases go unreported, the numbers are likely much higher, she said.

We're upgrading TB Online this weekend. The site might behave erratically and be up and down quite a bit over the next 72 hours. Apologies in advance. It should all be working properly again by Monday morning.

They're aimed at shortening, simplifying the regimen used to prevent active disease. The new guidelines apply only to the United States.

Here is the STOP TB response to this letter by activists on its future governance. 

A World Health Organization (WHO) report revealed that significant progress toward eradicating tuberculosis (TB) globally was achieved in the last two decades. TB is a common and often deadly infectious disease spread through the air, when people who have the disease cough or sneeze. Usually it attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body. TB usually starts as an asymptomatic, latent infection that becomes an active disease, which untreated, kills more than half of its victims.

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Christian Lienhardt from the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland and colleagues announce that the Stop TB Partnership and the WHO Stop TB Department have launched the TB Research Movement.

Concomitant rifampicin-containing tuberculosis treatment reduced apparent efavirenz clearance with a corresponding increase in efavirenz exposure.

Financial difficulties have caused the Global Fund Board to cancel Round 11. This difficult decision was made at a stressful two-day Board meeting just concluded in Accra, Ghana. The Board also announced new rules for grant renewals in an attempt to find savings that can be applied to funding new proposals.

South African health experts are calling on governments to use legally available mechanisms to promote the production or import of generic drugs in their countries.