Air travel is now widely accessible, with a resulting increase in the numbers
of international air travellers and a consequently greater risk of communicable diseases being spread by infectious travellers. The transmission of airborne infections between people in confined spaces such as aircraft cabins i...
In 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) published an interim policy on collaborative TB/HIV activities
in response to demand from countries for immediate guidance on actions to decrease the dual burden of
tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The term interim was used because the...
Tuberculosis (TB) contacts are people who have close contact with patients with infectious TB.
As they are at high risk for infection (and in line with the Stop TB strategy), TB contacts should
be investigated systematically and actively for TB infection and disease. Such interventions
are called ‘tube...
Intersecting epidemics Tuberculosis (TB) remains a considerable global public health concern, mainly affecting poor and vulnerable populations. Every year, more than 9 million people fall ill with this infectious disease, and close to 2 million die from it. Diabetes, a chronic metabolic disease that is i...
An antibody detection-based diagnostic test in a user-friendly format could potentially replace
microscopy and extend tuberculosis diagnosis to lower levels of health services. Dozens of commercial
serological tests for tuberculosis are being marketed in many parts of the world, despite previous systemat...
Conventional light microscopy of Ziehl-Neelsen-stained smears prepared directly from sputum specimens is the most widely available test for diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in resource-limited settings. Ziehl-Neelsen microscopy is highly specific, but its sensitivity is variable (20–80%) and is significa...
Research over the past decade has resulted in the development of two commercial interferongamma release assays (IGRAs), based on the principle that the T-cells of individuals who have acquired TB infection respond to re-stimulation with Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific antigens by secreting interferon...
Earlier and improved tuberculosis (TB) case detection - including smear-negative disease, often associated with HIV co-infection - as well as expanded capacity to diagnose multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are global priorities for TB control. Conventional laboratory methods are slow and cumberso...
To improve survival and quality of life among the 2.5 million children living with HIV, a comprehensive package of prevention, care and treatment is required. This package should include management of infections such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria and ear infections, as well as common opportunistic inf...
