VOL.51   /  2024.07.29

The Stop TB Partnership, Country-Level Platform Partnerships – Stories from the field of June 2024

Securing our TB free future - Eastern European and Central Asian health leaders increase political commitment to ending TB

Stop TB Partnership launches call for nominations for the community award 2024

Stop TB Partnership held a regional meeting in Cameroon Targeting Francophone Africa

Biofabri and TBVI sign a contract with the European Health and Digital Executive Agency to accelerate the final development of the new TB vaccine MTBVAC

Global Fund and Unitaid increase collaboration to advance equitable access to health products.

The SMART4TB Consortium hosted a webinar on 20 June 2024 about the consensus process and statement for earlier inclusion of pregnant women and persons in TB research. You can watch the recorded version, download the presentation here.

The TB Vaccine Advocacy Roadmap (TB Vax ARM) released a policy brief elaborating on the urgent need of developing new TB vaccines to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). 'Vaccines that prevent TB disease would save millions of lives, avert billions of dollars in treatment costs, and help curb the threat of AMR.' Access the policy brief here.

South Africa's Competition Commission announced that Johnson & Johnson has agreed to withdraw a secondary patent on bedaquiline. The company also agreed to lower the price charged for bedaquiline to South Africa's National Department of Health by 40%.

In a big victory for TB activism and children suffering from TB in India, the country’s patent office rejected Johnson & Johnson’s patent application for the paediatric formulation of bedaquiline.

The National Health Service (NHS) in England released Clinical commissioning policy statement, and accompanying documents, for the treatment for defined patients with rifampicin-resistant TB, multidrug-resistant TB, pre-extensively drug-resistant TB and extensively drug-resistant TB including bedaquiline and delamanid (all ages). Access the documents here.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted traditional approval to Sirturo® (bedaquiline) for use as part of combination therapy in adult and pediatric patients (5 years and older and weighing at least 15 kg) with pulmonary TB due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to at least rifampin and isoniazid.

As scientists harness artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate drug discovery, UCF College of Medicine TB researcher Kyle Rohde has partnered with biotech company Atomwise to see how AI can speed up testing of potential drugs to treat the disease.

The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) has developed a comprehensive guide on operational research. The second edition of Operational Research to Improve Health Services: A practical guide for protocol development, data capture and analysis, scientific writing, publishing and translation of evidence to policy and practice presents completely revised and updated content of the guide published in 2013.

Programs aimed at eliminating TB have improved throughout the United States, with most indicating reductions in disease incidence and higher rates of treatment completion. The findings were published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Although time to treatment discontinuation of TB preventive therapy did not significantly differ between patients with latent TB on the basis of treatment regimen, interruptions in therapy varied by social and demographic factors. The study results were published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

An "unconventional" immune response now identified by scientists is a potential new pathway for developing new TB vaccines, according to a publication in Cell Reports.

Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can estimate lung function from chest radiographs with high accuracy. The findings were published in The Lancet Digital Health.

Researchers have developed a more accurate way to scan for TB using positron emission tomography (PET). A new radiotracer, called FDT, enables PET scans to be used for the first time to accurately pinpoint when and where the disease is still active in a patient’s lungs.

A fingerprint may soon be all a doctor needs to check whether TB patients are taking their antibiotics. Scientists successfully detected the drugs in finger sweat – and with almost the same accuracy as a blood test.

Researchers have designed a novel 3D hydrogel culture system that mimics the mammalian lung environment, providing a powerful platform to track and study how Mycobacterium tuberculosis infects lung cells and test the efficacy of therapeutics used to treat TB.

The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease released the July 2024 issue of the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IJTLD). It contains TB-related research publications.

The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease released the June 2024 issue of Public Health Action, a peer-reviewed open access journal, containing TB-related research publications.

The RESIST-TB July 2024 newsletter with the latest updates and research publications on drug-resistant TB can be accessed here.