Tuberculosis News and Research

Latest Tuberculosis News and Research

Stopping UK BCG vaccination well justified

From autumn 2005, the long running routine programme to vaccinate school children against tuberculosis with BCG vaccine will stop. This decision brings the UK into line with much of the rest of the world and is well justified, writes Professor Paul Fine in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

26 Sep 2005

United States investment in tuberculosis treatment abroad saves lives and money at home

Most cases of TB in the US and Canada occur among immigrants, refugees, visitors, and other migrants from countries where this disease remains common.

10 Sep 2005

Health officials insist they were prepared for Katrina

Federal health officials in the U.S. are defending themselves against criticism that the government was not prepared to deal with disaster left by Hurricane Katrina.

7 Sep 2005

Macrophages kill bacteria - but not always

Macrophages are effective weapons used by our immune system to absorb and digest pathogenic intruders. Some bacteria, however, can subvert this defence mechanism and even multiply within the macrophages.

1 Sep 2005

New strategies to fight the most dangerous infectious disease

It has been identified by the World Health Organization as the most dangerous infectious disease, causing more deaths -- more than 2 million a year -- than any other single infection. Approximately one-third of the world's population is already infected.

31 Aug 2005

Tuberculosis emergency in Africa

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), African health ministers have declared a tuberculosis emergency to order to rally greater political commitment in the fight against one of the continent's top killers.

29 Aug 2005

New vaccine protects more effectively against tuberculosis

Max Planck researchers have uncovered the mechanism by which the new genetically engineered tuberculosis vaccine functions.

28 Aug 2005

Novel vaccine strain with high efficacy against tuberculosis

Tuberculosis remains a major global health threat. Although more than 3 billion doses of the BCG vaccine have been administered to fight tuberculosis, the ability of the BCG vaccine to protect adults is very limited, as is its efficacy against newly emerging isolates.

22 Aug 2005

Discovery of gene that controls the speed at which patients develop tuberculosis

Scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) have discovered a gene that controls the speed at which patients develop tuberculosis--the first time such a gene has been discovered for this disease.

16 Aug 2005

How some antibiotics kill bacteria

Researchers have uncovered how members of one family of antibiotics kill bacteria that make people sick.

11 Aug 2005

Majority of Americans believe that vaccines are the best hope for controlling the global AIDS epidemic

But while most of those surveyed felt it personally important to help support HIV vaccine research, a majority expressed reluctance to support a friend or family member's participation in an HIV vaccine clinical trial.

9 Aug 2005

Resistance to antituberculosis drugs has been rising in Botswana since 1995

Resistance to antituberculosis drugs has been rising in Botswana since 1995, concludes a Research Letter in this weeks issue of The Lancet. Enhanced interventions for TB control are urgently needed in Botswana to prevent further emergence of drug resistance, state the authors.

4 Aug 2005

What caused leprosy?

What caused leprosy - a widely dreaded disease in medieval Europe - to fade from the scene? By the 16th century, the scourge had practically disappeared there.

2 Aug 2005

New understanding of degeneration of brain cells in patients with Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases

A ground-breaking new research approach to understanding the cellular processes of Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases has revealed a promising pathway to the development of new types of drugs for these diseases.

11 Jul 2005

Ten million Africans treated by international disease treatment

A disease treatment programme started three years ago by Imperial College London has now treated over ten million African children and adults for schistosomiasis and intestinal worm infections in six sub-Saharan countries.

6 Jul 2005

Research shows smoking may increase the risk of Tuberculosis

Smoking may increase the risk of developing tuberculosis infection, show researchers in Thorax.

1 Jul 2005

Report highlights importance of research into diseases in developing countries

Better drugs and vaccines are needed to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), malaria and other tropical diseases. Pharmaceutical research has typically focussed on developing drugs, vaccines and other interventions for diseases prevalent in developed countries, where people can afford to buy treatments; it has tended to overlook those disorders that predominantly affect developing countries.

30 Jun 2005

If global efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS are to work long term, they must avoid suspicions of being unfair

Johns Hopkins infectious disease specialists who have spent more than two decades leading efforts to combat HIV and AIDS worldwide are warning that limited international relief supplies of antiretroviral therapies currently being distributed in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean will not get to those who can least afford to pay for them.

28 Jun 2005

Grand Challenges in Global Health awards $450m to top scientists

Grants totalling U.S $450m were awarded yesterday to some of the world's most inventive scientists to enable them to turn their novel ideas into practical solutions to the 14 greatest problems plaguing human health today.

28 Jun 2005

Gleevec or similar drugs might be useful in preventing adverse side effects of smallpox vaccine

Mice given a relatively new cancer drug can survive an otherwise lethal dose of vaccinia virus, a relative of smallpox virus, report scientists supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

27 Jun 2005