Infection Control Today Magazine

Resistant Tuberculosis

More Evidence, Better Diagnostics Needed Before Redefining Severe Forms of Drug-Resistant TB

Reports of tuberculosis (TB) cases with severe patterns of drug resistance are increasing, said experts who attended a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Geneva March 21-22, 2012. Participants stressed that the emergence of drug resistance should be a wake-up call ...More
March 23, 2012
Posted in News
TB Alliance Establishes New Pathway to TB and MDR-TB Treatment

In an ambitious effort to stem the dangerous tide of tuberculosis (TB) and deadly drug-resistant TB around the world, TB Alliance today announced that it has launched a first-of-its-kind clinical trial to test a novel drug combination – in both patients who have TB and ...More
March 19, 2012
Posted in News
Nurses to Play Central Role in Managing TB Syndemic

Jason E. Farley, PhD, MPH, CRNP, knows the dangers inherent to an increasingly common and hazardous syndemic in South Africa: HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). More problematic than a co-morbidity, a syndemic refers to two or more co-occurring epidemics that ...More
July 8, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Professor Taking the Lead in Global Effort Against Drug-Resistant TB, HIV

In the African nation where the first extensively drug-resistant case of tuberculosis (XDR-TB) was found a few years ago, the doors soon will open on a new TB research facility. University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher Adrie Steyn, PhD, is the first scientist ...More
July 1, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
PET Scans Predict Effectiveness of Treatment for Multidrug-Resistant TB in HIV Patients

With the deficiencies in knowledge of tuberculosis—as well as in the practices, programs and strategies used to combat the disease and co-infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—the spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis poses a major problem for the ...More
May 24, 2011
Posted in News
Girl's Life Saved by Novel Therapy for Drug-Resistant TB

Belgian physicians report they have cured a young patient with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) using a novel two-drug combination developed by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The report, published in the Pediatric ...More
May 11, 2011
Posted in News
Efficacy of TB Vaccine is Enhanced

Nele Festjens and Nico Callewaert of VIB and Ghent University have improved the efficacy of the vaccine for tuberculosis. The new vaccine affords -- as already proven in mice -- better protection against the disease. The development of a new tuberculosis vaccine is a ...More
February 18, 2011
Posted in News
WHO Endorses New Rapid TB Test

The World Health Organization (WHO)'s endorsement of the rapid test, which is a fully automated NAAT (nucleic acid amplification test) follows 18 months of rigorous assessment of its field effectiveness in the early diagnosis of TB, as well as multidrug-resistant TB ...More
December 8, 2010
Posted in News
Computer Model Shows U.S. Vulnerable to MDR-TB Epidemic

While the U.S. has made great progress in the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis, the nation has become more susceptible to potential epidemics of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), according a study led by Johns Hopkins researchers. Computer simulations show ...More
September 27, 2010
Posted in News
Two-Hour Test for TB Reported to be Clinically Effective

Research assessing the effectiveness of a new diagnostic test for the detection of tuberculosis (TB) is featured in the Sept. 1 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. A rapid automated molecular test, which was developed as a result of a public-private partnership ...More
September 1, 2010
Posted in News