Clusters of new cases of tuberculosis (TB) provide strong evidence of areas that need to be prioritised for improved antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage, and improved ART coverage is associated with a reduction in new TB cases, according to research carried out in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, published in July in Nature Scientific Reports.

Giving treatment for tuberculosis to all people with very advanced HIV disease at the time they start antiretroviral therapy, before a laboratory diagnosis of TB – so-called empiric treatment – does not reduce the risk of death compared to giving antiretroviral therapy and isoniazid preventive therapy. These findings were presented by Dr Mina Hosseinipour at the Eighth International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2015) on Monday.

Starting HIV treatment at a CD4 cell count above 500 reduced the risk of serious illness including tuberculosis (TB), and death, by 44% when compared to starting treatment according to World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, results from the seven-year Temprano study show. The findings were presented on Wednesday (February 25) at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2015) in Seattle, USA.

The vast majority of people with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) diagnosed in the world’s most extensive outbreak have acquired their infection from another person, not as the result of the failure of treatment for multidrug-resistant strains of tuberculosis (MDR-TB), N Sarita Shah told the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2015) in Seattle, USA, on Wednesday.

HIV diagnoses have increased by 80% in the European region since 2004, and three quarters of new HIV diagnoses in the European region are occurring in Eastern Europe, yet the scale and targeting of HIV prevention, testing and treatment in Eastern Europe are inadequate, a European meeting on standards of care for HIV and coinfections in Europe heard last week in Rome.

Eastern Europe is facing quadruple, intersecting epidemics of injecting drug use, HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and hepatitis C, and governments must act to tackle these problems in the only region of the world where the HIV epidemic is still expanding, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on HIV in central and eastern Europe, Professor Michel Kazatchkine, told the opening session of the 14th European AIDS Conference tonight in Brussels.

A new two-drug combination of rifapentine and moxifloxacin can allow tuberculosis (TB) treatment to be taken once-weekly during the four-month continuation phase, Dr Amina Jindani of St George’s University Medical School, London, told the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2013) in Atlanta, on 6 March.

The lateral-flow urine LAM test for tuberculosis – a simple inexpensive strip test for tuberculosis – is a feasible point-of-care test in hospitalised South African adults living with HIV and – if patients are then quickly put on effective treatment – would be a very cost-effective diagnostic strategy in such patients, according to a South African study presented on Wednesday afternoon at the 19^th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) in Washington DC.

WHO is working with countries to identify opportunities for expansion of treatment in line with its 2010 guidelines, which recommended treatment for all people living with HIV with CD4 cell counts below 350, all infants below the age of 2, and for everyone with TB and HIV or hepatitis B and HIV coinfection.