PARIS – Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) emerged and was widely transmitted in South Africa long before it was spotted by public health surveillance efforts, and at least a decade earlier than the first reported outbreak in 2005, a presentation Monday (July 24) showed. The start of the spread was concurrent with the steep rise in both HIV and TB incidence in the early 1990s.

ATLANTA, Ga, November 21 – Modeling suggests that tuberculosis is responsible for 6 to 15 percent of all maternal mortality.

ATLANTA, Ga –An interactive online portal now allows clinicians and researchers across five countries heavily affected by drug-resistant tuberculosis to exchange and analyze information that includes X-rays, scans, genomic information and clinical data that includes types of resistance, co-infections, and outcomes of patients whose disease does not respond to the two most effective TB treatments.

DURBAN, South Africa – Calling for change in approaches to tuberculosis to address poverty, malnutrition and human rights, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease leader Jose Luis Castro, at a pre-conference event here Saturday, urged TB responders globally to embrace patient-centered approaches and language. That includes ending the use of nomenclature such as “TB suspect” and TB defaulters,” which Castro noted was tantamount to treating people with TB like criminals.

DURBAN, South Africa – “Can we control tuberculosis without a vaccine?” asked Willem Hanekom, of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,  Saturday, and answered his own question: “No.”

VANCOUVER, Canada – Isoniazid preventive therapy is as effective in staving off tuberculosis as preemptively treating patients with HIV for tuberculosis, research results released here this morning (July 20) showed. The findings came in one of a series of presentations this morning highlighting challenges posed by tuberculosis to the lives and well-being of people living with HIV, and failures to use proven interventions.

BARCELONA, Spain –  At a symposium on Thursday (October 30) on the intersection between tuberculosis and maternal and infant health, Adrie Bekker presented disturbing findings from a study looking at outcomes for pregnant women with tuberculosis who came for care at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.  Over the course of a year, clinicians identified 74 maternal tuberculosis patients to the researchers by clinicians. Of those women, 53 percent also had HIV infection and 30 percent of the women had previously been treated for TB disease. Eight percent had drug-resistant tuberculosis. Of the HIV-infected women, 36 percent had extra pulmonary tuberculosis including eight women who had TB meningitis. While 60 percent of the HIV-infected women were on antiretroviral therapy, they had started recently, and the immune systems of most were severely suppressed.

BARCELONA, Spain —  “It seems as if we have grown accustomed to TB and ready to accept that human suffering associated with it,” remarked Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, minister of health for South Africa during a plenary talk at the World Conference on Lung Health on Wednesday.  Dr. Motsoaledi wears another important hat these days in addition to his lead role in South Africa’s response to its HIV epidemic — the largest in the world and its TB response with its ranking in the top ten countries with the largest TB burden.  Motsoaledi also is the new co-chair of the STOP TB partnership which extends his leadership on tuberculosis and TB/HIV co-infection to the world.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – “Why do we still have 320,000 deaths from TB in people living with HIV each year?”

“We must ensure that the worlds of HIV and TB focus on individual human beings instead of individual diseases”