TB Clip December 2021 (2) article image

편집자 한마디!

국내외 결핵(TB) 뉴스

학술연구자료

STOP-TB 코리아 소식

코로나로 또는 다른 이유로 어려운 시절 묵묵히 한해를 잘 살아온 여기 계신 모든 분들 정말 수고 많으셨습니다. ~^❤️^
2021년 한 해도 만나 뵙지 못하고 또 지나가 긴 아쉬움이 남습니다.

하지만 코로나가 다 나쁘지만은 않네요. 예전 인도에서의 3년 생활이 현재 제 행복의 밑거름이 되었듯이, 예전 우리의 일상이 얼마나 소중했는지를 깨닫게 해 주니깐요. 코로나 끝나길 기다리기보단, 바로 지금 이자리에서 일상의 행복을 느껴보는 것은 어떨까 생각합니다.

The World Health Organization (WHO) released a document summarizing evidence gaps articulated in various WHO TB policy guidance to help steer innovation towards sustainable, desirable, acceptable, and feasible public health interventions required to end TB.

The WHO says it’s time for action on inequality to end TB and AIDS. More needs to be done to understand the scale and impact of underlying health inequalities if we are to make progress in attaining global and national targets for TB, HIV and malaria, says the WHO and Global Fund.

The latest WHO guidance for national programmes on the management of TB in children.

The WHO issues a ‘Newsflash’ (on 3 December) stating it concludes that the Xpert MTB/RIF and Ultra cartridge performance on the GeneXpert 10-colour instrument is comparable to that of the GeneXpert 6-colour instrument for detection of TB and rifampicin resistance. The WHO released a policy statement on the Use of Xpert MTB/RIF and Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra on GeneXpert 10-colour instruments.

Otsuka’s FighTBack initiative is showcased in the Stop TB best practices guide - ‘Best Practices in Private Sector Engagement to Advance the Fight Against TB’. Otsuka is praised for increasing delamanid access in all low and middle income countries with high TB burdens, as well as pursuing novel TB research and development for safer and shorter oral pan-TB regimens.

TaBriX is a new spin-out company from the University of Manchester (UoM) with the mission to create novel anti-virulence drugs to fight difficult-to-treat infections. TaBriX’s initial focus is on the treatment of drug-resistant TB, having developed a series of first-in-class TB drug candidates with a novel mode of action. TaBriX and UoM are working in collaboration with TB Alliance to assess how effective these drug candidates are alone and in combination with the current standard of care. Source: University of Manchester

Inequities have been widely acknowledged as barriers to achieving global and national goals and targets in HIV, TB and malaria programs. The World Health Organization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria released a report systematically assessing the global state of inequality across the three diseases.

The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) launched a new free online course, providing all the information needed for the programmatic and clinical management of drug-resistant TB. The course is specifically designed for clinical officers, nurses, paramedics and other health workers. For more information about the course and to register, click here.

The 6th Global Forum on TB Vaccines will be held on 22-24 February 2022 as a hybrid event, with options for in-person and virtual participation. Applications for participant support are being accepted through 31 December 2021. Participant support is available for students, post-docs, early career researchers, advocates, affected communities, and participants from lower- and middle-income countries. For full details, click here.

The new Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends,2005-2020 report from Treatment Action Group (TAG) and the Stop TB Partnership finds that global funding for TB research totaled US$915 million in 2020 - less than half the goal of US$2 billion set forth by participating country governments at the 2018 United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB. Despite the toll TB takes around the world, TB funding has been flat since 2018, and in 2020 TB received less than 1% of the amount invested in COVID-19 R&D.

Treatment Action Group (TAG) released newly available TB chapters of its 2021 Pipeline Report describing the current research and development landscapes for TB diagnostics and treatment -- Tuberculosis Diagnostics, and Tuberculosis Treatment.

The Stop TB Partnership, together with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), released a practical guide on the Implementation of Simultaneous Diagnostic Testing for COVID-19 and TB in High TB Burden Countries. The guide provides various scenarios to be considered in order to increase access to testing for COVID-19 and TB.

The StopTB Partnership marks World AIDS Day (1 December) warning of an anticipated increase in TB deaths among those living with HIV. TB deaths among those with HIV increased for the first time last year since 2010, with 214,000 deaths.

Global funding for TB research was $915 million last year, but still amounts to less than half the annual goal of $2 billion set by member states at a United Nations meeting in 2018, according to a new report issued by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Stop TB Partnership.

The South Korean AI drug firm Standigm signs a memorandum of understanding with non-profit research Institute Pasteur Korea to collaborate on research into new TB drugs.

The StopTB Partnership warns TB deaths among people living with HIV is to increase for the first time in a decade.

With TB deaths, globally, rising for the first time in a decade, the disease killed 20,000 Kenyans last year. There, innovative ‘ATMs’ - automated TB screening machines - are helping to find missing cases, as reported in The Guardian.

Researchers investigated immune responses in adult individuals pre and 8 months post Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination trying to understand which kinds of immune cells respond to the BCG vaccine and ‘remember’ the vaccine well enough to fight the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium that causes TB.

Scientists have spotted signs of ‘pre-resistance’ in bacteria for the first time - signs that particular bacteria are likely to become resistant to antibiotics in the future. The findings will allow doctors in the future to select the best treatments for bacterial infections.

An article published in The Lancet Global Health estimated paediatric TB incidence and underreporting between 2013 and 2019 in countries representing more than 99% of the global TB burden.

Adding additional screening methods in combination with standard testing would increase diagnostic accuracy for TB among patients with HIV. According to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, C-reactive protein can decrease the need for diagnostic rapid tests without compromising sensitivity for TB screening among patients with HIV.

A study published in JAMA Network Open found that a person who was diagnosed with both TB and COVID-19 within 30 days was 20 times as likely to die than someone who only had the coronavirus, and twice as likely to die when compared to someone diagnosed with TB before the pandemic. Here is the same research reported on the globally, widely read, Mail Online news website, with the headline: ‘People diagnosed with COVID and TB died at a rate 20 times higher than those who were infected with only the coronavirus, study finds.’

The WHO’s Global Group on Public-Private ‘Mix’ for TB prevention and care calls for more innovation and accountability to end TB in the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic. You can view the two days of sessions here.

Mathematical modelling analysis published in The Lancet says cases of paediatric TB morbidity and mortality are ‘substantially’ underreported.

An opinion piece in The Lancet argues that undernutrition, no BCG vaccination and HIV infection may account for around 25 per cent of new TB cases in children. If we then consider that countries with the highest TB burden are among the poorest or most socially unequal, and these are the places that will probably suffer most from the COVID-19 pandemic – then this information concerning children becomes relevant.

A study published in Nature of TB trends between 2004 and 2020 in northern Italy finds an overall decline in TB notifications, but foreigners still represent the group with the highest number of cases. It suggests the enhancement of health care strategies directed to immigrants from high TB burden countries should be a priority in the efforts towards global TB elimination.

A study of TB patients in six Jakartan hospitals reveals up to 13 per cent of them had fungal lung infections - or aspergillosis - at the end of their treatment. This finding may have major implications for Indonesia, and globally, as though most people recovered from TB, researchers found some were then struck down with the debilitating lung infection.

RESIST-TB released its November 2021 newsletter with the latest research publications on drug-resistant TB.

The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease released the December 2021 issue of the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IJTLD). It predominantly includes TB-related research publications.