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.

Target TB has joined up with the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRA) to raise awareness about the impact of tuberculosis (TB) on maternal and child health.

“Elimination of tuberculosis (TB) is more than an aspiration. We know it could become a reality, but this will happen only if we achieve radical transformation in the way TB is diagnosed, treated and prevented. This goal can be realized only if TB research is intensified and envisioned in an entirely new way.” These are the first words of Lucica Ditiu, Executive Secretary of Stop TB Partnership, in the International Roadmap of Tuberculosis Research, launched this weekend in Lille.

The results of a large-scale community-randomized trial, which were presented at the 42nd World Conference on Lung Health in Lille, France show that the Zambia South Africa TB and AIDS Reduction (ZAMSTAR) study's "Household Counselling" intervention reduced the prevalence of culture positive tuberculosis by 22% compared to the communities that did not receive the intervention.

This report outlines the current state of paediatric TB care, looking at current practices, new developments and research needs – in paediatric TB diagnosis, treatment and prevention.