WHO Report: Progress Made in Treating TB, But Key Challenges Remain

An estimated 8 million tuberculosis-related deaths have been averted over the last 15 years through aggressive global efforts to combat this ancient and deadly epidemic, according to a new report released today by the World Health Organization.
 The epidemiological report, which provides more up-to-date figures than usual, says there were an estimated 9.4 million new cases [...]

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New vaccine would revolutionize the fight against tuberculosis…if funding is available

How could the world dramatically lower the incidence of tuberculosis and save millions of lives? 
An effective TB vaccine would revolutionize the response to TB, which kills about 5000 people each day, and eliminate the need for lengthy and often difficult drug treatment.   
An effective vaccine would be of tremendous benefit all over the world, including in the [...]

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Guest Blog by Paula Akugizibwe: Don’t Abandon the TB Basics for a Miracle Cure

This is a guest post written by Paula Akugizibwe, regional treatment advocacy coordinator at AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. She wrote this in response to remarks made by Marcos Espinal, of the Stop TB Partnership, to the UN Economic and Social Council on July 6.
Espinal said, in part:  
“MDG 6 has been [...]

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HIV/TB Co-infection–The Deadly Duo Take Center Stage at IAS

This post is by Center Director Christine Lubinski, reporting from the 2009 IAS conference in Cape Town.
World renowned HIV/TB expert Dr. Gerry Friedland, a professor of medicine at Yale and a member of the Global Center’s Scientific Advisory Committee, opened this morning’s plenary session at the 2009 IAS conference by highlighting important operational research [...]

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Deadly Duo Briefing: TB is the Biggest Threat to the “Miracle of HIV Therapy”

Update: A full video of the briefing appears at the bottom of the post.
Leading disease experts made a compelling case for strong US leadership and aggressive new policies to combat HIV/TB co-infection at a congressional briefing on Thursday. The briefing came in conjunction with the release of a new report, “Deadly Duo: The Synergy Between [...]

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Debate Over Obama’s Global Health Initiative Heats Up

Update: Click play below to listen to the interview with Center for Global Health Policy head Christine Lubinski.
$63 billion sounds like a lot of money. That’s the price tag on President Barack Obama’s global health initiative, unveiled with some fanfare last month and the target of contentious debate ever since. But how far will that [...]

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Key Decision on TB and AIDS Funding Looms in the U.S. House

Editor’s Note: We will be blogging today about the House Appropriations subcommittee meeting, filing an update on funding levels for global health programs. So check back to see what happens!
At last week’s HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting in Namibia, participants expressed deep concern about the commitment among donor nations to maintaining the momentum in the global fight against [...]

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World Health Assembly Calls for Action on Drug-Resistant TB

 The close of the 62nd World Health Assembly included a resolution on combating drug-resistant tuberculosis, a particularly welcome development given that TB almost got knocked off the WHA agenda because of a heavy focus on the influenza A(H1N1) virus.
The WHA meeting of health ministers and officials from the World Health Organization member states ended a [...]

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Global Center Hosts Zimbabwe’s Dr. James Hakim at Health Policy Forum

 
 
Zimbabwe’s health care infrastructure had been in a state of slow decline for more than a decade, and then experienced a near-total collapse over the last year, said Dr. James Hakim, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Zimbabwe, College of Health Sciences.
This comes as the strife-torn country has grappled with a [...]

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Old Drugs, New Tricks?

Scientists may have discovered a chink in TB’s armor against antibiotics.
A team of researchers at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine and the NIH found, in lab tests, that clavulanate effectively breaks through TB’s defense against another drug—meropenem.
The meropenem was then able to successfully tackle the TB bacteria. Laboratory results showed the combo blocked the [...]

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