Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis Vaccines and Therapeutics

The WHO estimates that the largest number of new tuberculosis (TB) cases in 2008 occurred in the South-East Asia Region, which accounted for 34% of incident cases globally. However, the estimated inci...

Tuberculosis TB

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by bacteria belonging to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. Over nine million new cases of TB, and nearly two million deaths from TB, are est...

Swine Flu - H1N1 influenza

Swine flu is the common name given to a relatively new strain of influenza (flu) that caused a flu pandemic in 2009-2010. It is also referred to as H1N1 influenza (because it is the H1N1 strain of...

Coronavirus

Coronavirus were first identified in the 1960s, and were named after the crown-like projections on the surface of the virus. They cause respiratory infections in both humans and animals. Coronavir...

Aggressive regimen reduces mortality in drug-resistant TB

(Medical Xpress)—Aggressive drug regimens used to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis reduce the risk of death by about 40 percent when they include at least five drugs likely to be effective aga...

[Series] Alignment of new tuberculosis drug regimens and drug susceptibility testing: a framework for action

New tuberculosis drug regimens are creating new priorities for drug susceptibility testing (DST) and surveillance. To minimise turnaround time, rapid DST will need to be prioritised, but developers of...

A.M. Vitals: Untreatable TB Strain in India

Here's what's making health news this morning: India in Race to Contain Untreatable Tuberculosis (WSJ): A new treatment-resistent strain of TB has emerged in India, and some health experts are skept...

[Series] Drug-resistant tuberculosis: time for visionary political leadership

Two decades ago, WHO declared tuberculosis a global emergency, and invested in the highly cost-effective directly observed treatment short-course programme to control the epidemic. At that time, most...

Examining the threat of multi-drug resistant TB in India

The Wall Street Journal reports on a rise of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) in India, writing, "India's slow response to years of medical warnings now threatens to turn the country into an inc...

[Comment] Unexpected high levels of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis present new challenges for tuberculosis control

Most international recommendations for tuberculosis control have been developed for multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis prevalence of up to around 5%. Yet we now face prevalence up to ten times hig...

'Missing link' discovered in the defense mechanism of the tuberculosis pathogen

Flemish biologists lead by Joris Messens (VIB / Vrije Universiteit Brussel) have discovered that Mycobacterium tuberculosis – the bacterium that causes tuberculosis – has an ingenious defence mech...

Deadly strain of TB found in South Africa

Doctors have issued a stark warning about a deadly and “virtually untreatable” strain of tuberculosis. They say the world could be hit by the drug-resistant form of the disease unless urgent...

M. tuberculosis H37Rv Infection of Chinese Rhesus Macaques.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the most common communicable infectious disease worldwide and the top killer of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected people. Because of common dual HIV and M. tube...

A Simple Model for Testing Drugs against Non-replicating Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Non-replicating or dormant cells of Mycobacterium tuberculosis constitute a challenge to tuberculosis (TB) therapy because of their tolerance or phenotypic resistance to most drugs. Here, we propose a...

Anti-tuberculosis Activity of a-Helical Antimicrobial Peptides: De novo Designed L- and D-Enantiomers Versus L- and D-LL-37.

With the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), a new class of antimycobacterial agents with very different modes of action comp...

Enhanced protection against tuberculosis by vaccination with recombinant BCG over-expressing HspX protein.

Immunization with Mycobacterium bovis Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) did not induce adequate Th1 responses to the latency antigen, HspX of M. tuberculosis. To increase the immunogenicity and protective...

Extended safety and efficacy studies of a live attenuated double leucine and pantothenate auxotroph of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as a vaccine candidate.

We have previously described the development of a live, fully attenuated Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) vaccine candidate strain with two independent attenuating auxotrophic mutations in leucine and...