Incarcerated people are at an alarmingly high risk of tuberculosis (TB) and this risk persists for years after their release, according to a study conducted in Paraguay and led by the Universidad Nacional de Asunción and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by “la Caixa Foundation.” The results, published in The Lancet Regional Health, call for urgent and effective TB control measures to protect the health of imprisoned people and their communities.

A study conducted by a student in ISGlobal-UB’s Master of Global identifies the main barriers for using the LF-LAM test as recommended by the WHO in countries with the highest disease burden.

The ‘Xpert Ultra’ molecular test has a greater capacity than its predecessor (‘Xpert MTB/RIF’) in detecting tuberculosis cases, either passively (i.e. people who attend the hospital with disease symptoms) or actively (searching for possible cases in the community among contacts of cases). This is the main conclusion of a study performed by ISGlobal, an institution supported by “la Caixa” Foundation, in collaboration with the Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM), published in the European Respiratory Journal.