Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major global health problem, with 10 million cases and 2 million deaths per year, according to the World Health Organization. The only available vaccine is effective in children but its effect wanes in older children and adults.

Improved universal healthcare is urgently needed to lower catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) for low-income tuberculosis (TB) patients in China, according to a study published in the open access journal Infectious Diseases of Poverty. Expanding universal healthcare could reduce the numbers of people affected by CHE.

Reminders to take medication, delivered to patients via an electronic pillbox, may be able to improve adherence to tuberculosis (TB) treatment. The findings, reported this week in PLOS Medicine, are the result of a cluster randomized controlled trial by Shiwen Jiang of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Katherine Fielding, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and colleagues.

Barcelona, Spain: Results of a new study suggest that three new diagnostic tests could each be used to successfully diagnose drug resistance in tuberculosis (TB) patients in a quarter of the time taken by the current method.

Richard Stone, International News Editor for the journal Science, last month traveled to Pyongyang, in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), to check in on the country's only laboratory capable of detecting strains of drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Across-the-board cuts to US R&D programs could have a devastating impact on efforts to develop new drugs for tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS, the world's first malaria vaccine, and other vital global health products in development, according to a new report from a coalition of nonprofit groups focused on advancing innovation to save lives.

Special edition to mark World TB day maps new issues and approaches to curbing spread of infection

PQM provides technical assistance to manufacturers around the world to address inadequate supply of quality-assured medicines for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis

A compound from the South African toothbrush tree inactivates a drug target for tuberculosis in a previously unseen way.

Bethesda, MD—A drug currently being used to treat ischemic strokes may prove to be a significant advance in the treatment of tuberculosis and ulcers. In a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal, a compound called ebselen effectively inhibits the thioredoxin reductase system in a wide variety of bacteria, including Helicobacter pylori which causes gastric ulcers and Mycobacterium tuberculosis which causes tuberculosis. Thioredoxin and thioredoxin reductase proteins are essential for bacteria to make new DNA, and protect them against oxidative stress caused by the immune system. Targeting this system with ebselen, and others compounds like it, represents a new approach toward eradicating these bacteria.