A modelling group convened by the World Health Organization and UNAIDS has estimated that if efforts are not made to mitigate and overcome interruptions in health services and supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic, a six-month disruption of antiretroviral therapy could lead to more than 500 000 extra deaths from AIDS-related …
India bears the largest burden of tuberculosis (TB) in the world. The TB prevention and control landscape in India is fraught with challenges at multiple levels, including low risk perception, lack of awareness, social stigma, an unregulated private sector and lack of treatment adherence. The Revised National TB Control Programme …
A leading microbiologist has warned of the increasing threat that killer fungi poses to humans and the environment. New figures show that fungal diseases cause hundreds of thousands of deaths annually, following severe respiratory illness and infections of the blood stream. And now an expert has warned that fungi kill …
Measuring a country's health performance has focused mostly on estimating levels of mortality. An alternative is to measure rates of decline in mortality, which are more sensitive to changes in health policy than are mortality levels. Historical rates of decline in mortality can also help test the feasibility of future …
The evolution of resistance to antimicrobial chemotherapy is a major and growing cause of human mortality and morbidity. Comparatively little attention has been paid to how different patient treatment strategies shape the evolution of resistance. In particular, it is not clear whether treating individual patients aggressively with high drug dosages …
Shortened antituberculosis treatment regimens are expected to improve patient adherence to treatment, thus favoring better case management and disease control and minimizing the risk of drug resistance.1-3 The first indication that fluoroquinolones had the potential to shorten tuberculosis treatment was from an observational study in India4 in which ethambutol was …
To aid in prioritizing the development of tuberculosis (TB) vaccines most likely to reach the 2050 TB elimination goal, we estimated the impact and cost-effectiveness of a range of vaccine profiles in low- and middle-income countries. Using mathematical modeling, we show that vaccines targeted at adolescents/adults could have a much …
Multiple strategies are being adopted by national tuberculosis (TB) programmes to achieve universal coverage of tuberculosis treatment. However, populations living in ‘hard-to-reach’ areas of north-east India have poor access to health services. Our study aimed to detail treatment outcomes in TB program supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and using …
Researchers have developed the first breath test for TB in the laboratory. It provides rapid information on drug resistance that takes up to six weeks using standard methods, US scientists report in the journal, Nature Communications. The bacteria emit a unique gas signature within 10 minutes of exposure to an …
The UN will formulate ambitious Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, including one for health. Feasible goals with some quantifiable, measurable targets can influence governments. We propose, as a quatitative health target, “Avoid in each country 40% of premature deaths (under-70 deaths that would be seen in the 2030 population at …
Two categories of evolutionary challenges result from escalating human impacts on the planet. The first arises from cancers, pathogens and pests that evolve too quickly, and the second from the inability of many valued species to adapt quickly enough. Applied evolutionary biology provides a suite of strategies to address these …
Diabetes triples the risk of tuberculosis and is also a risk factor for adverse tuberculosis treatment outcomes, including death. Prevalence of diabetes is increasing globally, but most rapidly in low-income and middle-income countries where tuberculosis is a grave public health problem. Growth in this double disease burden creates additional obstacles …
Diabetes triples the risk for active tuberculosis, thus the increasing burden of type 2 diabetes will help to sustain the present tuberculosis epidemic. Recommendations have been made for bidirectional screening, but evidence is scarce about the performance of specific tuberculosis tests in individuals with diabetes, specific diabetes tests in patients …
To achieve the post-2015 global tuberculosis target of 90% reduction in tuberculosis incidence by 2035, the present rate of decline must accelerate. Among factors that hinder tuberculosis control, malnutrition and diabetes are key challenges. The researchers reviewed available data to describe the complex relationship between tuberculosis, diabetes, and nutritional status.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur has found an eco-friendly way to make bangles. The UP pollution control department had recently asked 13 bangle manufacturing units to put a stop on the use of lustre in bangle industry. An expert team of IIT-K has now assured the manufacturers that …
Modern strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from the Americas are closely related to those from Europe, supporting the assumption that human tuberculosis was introduced post-contact. This notion, however, is incompatible with archaeological evidence of pre-contact tuberculosis in the New World. Comparative genomics of modern isolates suggests that M. tuberculosis attained its …
Confirmation of a diagnosis of tuberculosis in children (aged <15 years) is challenging; under-reporting can result even when children do present to health services. Direct incidence estimates are unavailable, and WHO estimates build on paediatric notifications, with adjustment for incomplete surveillance by the same factor as adult notifications. We …
Bangladesh has made a remarkable success in reducing deaths from tuberculosis and malaria, says a study of the University of Washington. It says between 2000 and 2013, deaths from TB in the county have fallen by 6.7 percent compared to 3.7 percent globally, while deaths from malaria have fallen by …
Last year, more than 545,500 Indians who did not suffer from HIV died from TB, males were almost twice as likely to be victims of the deadly disease, says a new report that will be published online in The Lancet Tuesday. Fewer people in India are dying from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, …
One third of the extreme poor global population resides in India, a latest UN report has suggested. According to the UN Millennium Development Goals report, India has also recorded the highest number of under-five deaths in the world with 1.4 million children dying before reaching their fifth birthday. “The overwhelming …
