26 April 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - Stop TB Partnership today announces the start of the process to develop the next Global Plan to End Tuberculosis (TB). The new Global Plan will cover the period 2023 to 2030 and will specifically identify what resources are needed to end the TB epidemic globally. It will be developed through a year-long process

하기완 (STOP-TB협력위원, Othsuka-TB Projects) Kiwan.Ha@kr.otsuka.com / 결핵 연구자 선생님께, 지난 6일에 새로운 4개월 요법(rifapentine-based regimen containing moxifloxacin)으로 DS-TB를 치료할 때, 표준 6개월 요법만큼 안전하고 효과적이라는 것이 New England Journal of Medicine에 발표되었습니다.

CDC의 TB Trial Consortium이 주도하고 AIDS Conical Trial Group이 지원하는 대규모 다국적 3상 임상시험의 결과는 2020년 10월 Union World Conference에서 처음 발표되어 큰 반향을 불러 일으켰습니다. 이러한 Shorter regimen은 치료 완료율을 높이고, 환자의 QOL(quality of life)을 개선하고, 치료 비용을 줄이면서, 약물 내성 발현을 줄일 수 있는 잠재력을 가지고 있으므로 앞으로 DS-TB에서의 치료에 큰 진전이 기대됩니다.

An 18-month study of the impact of bedaquiline compared with delamanid in a cohort of patients with MDR/RR-TB found no significant differences between the two drugs in treatment outcomes or adverse events. The South Korean researchers who carried out the nationwide study report an overall treatment success rate of 79.2%.

A large international clinical trial has established that a new four-month daily treatment regimen is as safe and effective as the standard six-month daily regimen at curing drug-susceptible tuberculosis disease, researchers report today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Results from the Phase 3 trial, led by the CDC’s Tuberculosis Trials Consortium and supported in part by the NIAID-funded AIDS Clinical Trials Group, were first presented in October 2020 at the Union World Conference on Lung Health. A shorter regimen has the potential to increase completion of therapy, improve patient quality of life, reduce treatment costs, and decrease development of drug resistance

The World Health Organization (WHO) Global TB Program announced a call for experts to serve as members of the Technical Advisory Group on TB Diagnostics and Laboratory Strengthening to advise WHO on technical aspects related to the assessment and implementation of TB diagnostic tools and TB diagnostic strategies. The deadline for submission of expressions of interest has been extended until 16 May 2021.

Roughly two in five people newly ill with TB worldwide are never diagnosed. In South Africa, this amounts to about 120,000 to 160,000 people per year. Now, a new study called XACT III is testing ways in which more people can be diagnosed and started on TB treatment more quickly. Spotlight

The Stop TB Partnership announced the start of the process to develop the next Global Plan to End TB. The new Global Plan will cover the period 2023 to 2030 and will specifically identify what resources are needed to end the TB epidemic globally. The current Global Plan covers the period 2018 to 2022. Stop TB Partnership

Looking ahead to a time when TB might be cured in 7 – 10 days was one of the topics presented in a TB Alliance webinar by Chief Scientific Officer, Nader Fotouhi. It’s available to watch here. The lecture covered: - 20 Years of Impact: Introduction to TB Alliance and an overview of TB drug development in the 21st century, - The TB drug discovery and development landscape today: state of the global pipeline and survey of TB Alliance’s programs, - Case study: a new therapy for highly drug-resistant forms of TB, -Where do we go from here? New partnerships and new treatment paradigms to reimagine TB treatment

The Sudanese government is reporting a rapid rise in TB, especially amongst young people. Since the 1990s the overall TB case rate has risen from 40 cases per 100,000 people to 67 cases per 100,000 in 2019. Treatment outcomes are improving but hundreds of laboratories have stopped TB testing owing to shortages of material and staff.

The recording of a seminar to mark World TB Day ‘Tuberculosis research and investment – lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic’, hosted by MEP Manuel Pizarro (S&D, Portugal, and co-chair of the MEP Lung Health Group) is available here.

On 20 April 2021, the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) and the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD) launched a global TB vaccine research and development roadmap at the Virtual Global Forum on TB Vaccines. It identifies priorities for the development and implementation of new TB vaccines with the aim to coordinate and accelerate global action. For more information and to access the Roadmap, click here.

WHO has published its latest review of anti-bacterial agents in clinical and pre-clinical development worldwide. It assesses the extent to which the clinical pipeline addresses M.Tb.

The World Health Organization released the sixth edition of the Guidance for the surveillance of drug resistance in tuberculosis aiming to assist national TB programs in developing the strongest possible mechanisms of surveillance for drug resistance in TB, building on more than 25 years of global experience.

In order to support country programs, healthcare providers, communities, people affected by TB, and partners during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Stop TB Partnership’s External Affairs & Strategic Initiatives team, as part of its Re-imagining TB Care initiative, is organizing a series of Virtual Innovation Spotlights to present and share various digital and health technologies. For more information about the planned events and how to get involved, click here.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Global TB Program has initiated a process to update the guidelines on diagnosis of TB infection. WHO is seeking expressions of interest from independent researchers, academic institutions or other entities with relevant expertise and experience in systematic reviews, data synthesis and analysis on the use of novel skin-based in vivo tests for TB infection. The deadline for submission of expressions of interest is 7 May 2021. For further details, click here.

The Indian government is expected to decide whether it is willing to override patents on two critical TB drugs, bedaquiline and delamanid, following a court petition filed at the Mumbai High Court by two survivors of TB and activists. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) supports the court petition and urges the Indian government to take this critical step that would allow price-lowering competition among generic manufacturers for drug-resistant TB medicines in India. Médecins Sans Frontières

A short-course TB preventive therapy combining two drugs, rifapentine and isoniazid, was launched for the first time in Ghana. The new fixed-dose combination of '3HP' prevents people infected with TB from developing active TB disease and reduces the number of pills that people have to take every week from nine to three. IMPAACT4TB

Host-directed adjunctive therapies everolimus and CC-11050 are safe and reasonably well-tolerated in adults with pulmonary TB infection, according to results of a study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. In addition, the two therapies may also improve lung function recovery. Pulmonolgy Advisor

A new report, released by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, showed COVID-19 has massively disrupted health systems and health service delivery for HIV, TB and malaria in low- and middle-income countries in Africa and Asia in 2020. It highlights the urgent need to scale up the adaptive measures that health facilities adopted to continue the fight against HIV, TB, malaria, to ramp up delivery of critical supplies for the COVID-19 response, and prevent health care systems and community responses from collapse.

Policy Cures Research released the G-FINDER 2020 report analyzing research and development (R&D) funding trends for neglected diseases. The report showed that global investments in TB R&D funding totaled of $670 million in 2019 - far short of the estimated $2.16 billion needed annually to develop and deliver new tools that can end TB. The press release announcing the report can be accessed here.

The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease in partnership with TB Alert, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and the Stop TB Partnership released a new technical guide 'Psychosocial counselling and treatment adherence support for people with tuberculosis', addressing critical gaps in TB care and control by focusing on overcoming the psychological, social and economic factors that prevent people from accessing diagnosis, adhering to care plans and successfully completing treatment.

WHO will shortly convene a Guideline Development Group to advise on updates needed to recommendations on the treatment of drug susceptible TB. Guidance was last updated in 2017, and experts will again review the evidence on shorter treatment regimes. The GDG meeting will be held online in late April 2021. The updated recommendations will be released in 2021 as part of the treatment module of the WHO consolidated guidelines on TB. More details of the process, inclusive of brief biographies of the experts invited to serve in the current GDG, are available here.

Germany, Indonesia, and the Global Fund have signed a new agreement to increase support to tuberculosis programs in Indonesia, through the Debt2Health financing initiative. It will convert €50 million of debt owed by Indonesia to Germany into investments in public health programs supported by the Global Fund.

The European Investment Bank and BioVersys AG announced the signing of a €20 million venture debt transaction. The financing supports the company’s research and development of a diverse pipeline of drugs that address antimicrobial resistance, including a small molecule, BVL-GSK098, which is being tested for multidrug-resistant TB.

A study, published in Frontiers in Immunology, found fundamental differences in how a baby’s immune cells respond to TB compared to those of an adult, offfering hope for improving treatment for TB. Trinity College Dublin

Researchers have successfully discovered how Mycobacterium tuberculosis uses an essential sugar called trehalose, which provides a platform to design new and improved TB drugs and diagnostic agents. University of Warwick

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

According to a paper published in Biomedical Journal, treatment with rifampin is a new risk factor for recurrent Clostridium difficile (C diff) infection episodes in patients aged 51-60 years.

The successful treatment of multidrug-resistant TB requires clarification in advance as to which antibiotics the pathogens are resistant to. Researchers have now prepared a catalogue of all mutations in the genome of TB bacteria and on the basis of a genome sequencing can quickly and cheaply predict which medicines are most effective for TB treatment. The results of this work were published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

An assessment of the burden of drug-resistant TB amongst patients at a tertiary care centre in India suggests the country urgently needs a robust surveillance system to halt an emerging multidrug-resistant TB epidemic with associated resistance to FQs. The study found 21.6% of 1032 samples were rifampicin-monoresistant; the rate of rifampicin resistance in pulmonary samples was 23.5%, and 17% in extra-pulmonary samples. Out of 62 cases included for second-line testing, 48 were resistant to FQs while 11 were extensively drug resistant.

A study published in The Lancet details a blood test that can detect those at high risk of tuberculosis in people living with HIV. The research team in South Africa tested the diagnostic and prognostic performance of an RNA biomarker blood test and found that the risk of current TB was 13-times higher in those with a positive RISK11 test versus a negative RISK11 test, and the risk of developing TB within 15 months of testing was 16-times higher in those with a positive RISK11 test versus a negative RISK11 test.

Researchers in China have examined the therapeutic potential of Coumestan Pks13 inhibitors in TB. These compounds were active on both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant strains of M.Tb and showed low cytotoxicity to healthy cells. Using a mouse model, they demonstrated bactericidal action with their lead candidate, and a synergistic action in combination with rifampicin. Abstract.

Researchers at the University of Warwick, UK, have unravelled the molecular basis for how M.Tb uses and transports a sugar, Trehalose, found in its cell walls. If a transport protein, LpqY, responsible for the uptake of trehalose is absent, M.Tb becomes less pathogenic. The scientists suggest the discovery offers a potential platform for both new TB drugs and diagnostics.

Spanish researchers report a new lineage of TB, found mainly in the east of the African continent.