Yashica isn't your typical laboratory technician. For one thing, there's the tail. For another, he'll literally work for peanuts.

Medical practitioners from eight regional countries have kicked off a week-long seminar, in Kigali, on handling severe tuberculosis, commonly known as Drug Resistant TB.

Charles Raradza (44) fell seriously ill in 2001, coughing uncontrollably. He went to get tested for tuberculosis (TB) at a hospital in Kadoma, but the bacteria that causes the disease was not detected in his sputum.

A potential vaccine against tuberculosis has been found to completely eliminate tuberculosis bacteria from infected tissues in some mice. The vaccine was created with a strain of bacteria that, due to the absence of a few genes, are unable to avoid its host's first-line immune response. Once this first-line defense has been activated, it triggers the more specific immune response that can protect against future infections.

In a landmark initiative aimed at curbing the current tuberculosis (TB) epidemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) today signed a Joint Statement on the role of pharmacists in tuberculosis care and control at the Federation's 71st International Congress in Hyderabad, India.

Read the article here.

WHO and the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease (The Union) have developed a Collaborative Framework for Care and Control of Tuberculosis and Diabetes, which presents recommendations based on evidence from three systematic reviews and a series of expert consultations. It outlines essential steps for coordinated action in three areas:

On March 3-4, 2011, UN staff, donors, and civil society representatives met in New York to discuss how the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria might best operationalize the promotion of human rights and equitable access as one of its five strategic objectives.

This seven page document discuses a study by a team of researchers from the Global Fund who examined the association between (a) various grant and country-related characteristics, and (b) the "performance" of TB grants (where performance was measured in terms of the percentage attainment of the targets that were set for a list of nine major TB output indicators). The review summarises the study's assumptions and findings, reviews its strengths and weaknesses, and discusses some broader issues regarding appropriate target-setting and effective performance management.

In June this year the first case of extensively-drug resistant TB in New Zealand was reported. The strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated is the most drug-resistant strain recorded to date in Australasia.