Breakthroughs Blog: Tuberculosis

Prior to COVID-19, tuberculosis (TB)—another airborne disease—was the world’s leading global infectious disease killer, claiming the lives of around 1.5 million people annually. Insufficient and inadequate tools and treatments, and growing drug resistance, have challenged global efforts to bring the TB epidemic to an end, and more recently, disruptions from COVID-19 have reversed years of TB progress. In 2020, global TB deaths increased for the first time in more than a decade, and about 1 million fewer people were tested and treated for TB compared to 2019. At the same time, global funding for TB diagnostic, treatment, and prevention services fell by $500 million from 2019 to 2020, and total funding for TB research and development dropped by $33 million.Scientists hope the tide can be turned as new technologies and innovations advance to market—but to achieve that, more investment is urgently needed to boost resources and reverse setbacks.In recognition of World TB Day, test your knowledge of innovations to end TB with GHTC’s quiz below:

At GHTC, we get to read stories every day about incredible innovations in global health. Most of the technologies we see are inventive, some are revolutionary, and a few are so unusual, one might think they were ripped from the pages of a science fiction novel. Now, we’re testing how well you know these global health technologies with our annual Halloween game: the TRICK or TREATment quiz.For each question, we will present a description of a global health technology. Choose TREATment if you believe this innovation exists and has market approval. Choose TRICK if you think we are trying to pull one over on you and, instead, the product is still in development or is just a figment of our imagination.  Loading...(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. A six-month oral treatment regimen for rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (TB) is substantially more effective than the current standard of care, according to preliminary trial results presented at the 52nd Union World Conference on Lung Health on Wednesday. The TB-Practecal trial tested a six-month regimen of bedaquiline, pretomanid, linezolid, and moxifloxacin (BPaLM) among 552 patients against the locally accepted standard of care at seven trial sites across Belarus, South Africa, and Uzbekistan. Findings showed around 89 percent of patients in the BPaLM group were cured, compared to 52 percent in the standard of care group. Current standard care for rifampicin-resistant TB can require up to 20 pills daily, along with injections, for up to 20 months.A new fingerstick blood test could be a promising tool for screening TB patients, interim study results indicate. The test, developed by Cepheid, gives results in under one hour using a few drops of blood. The new results, from a study of 195 participants in Gambia, Uganda, South Africa, and Vietnam, show an overall sensitivity of 91 percent and specificity of 86 percent, regardless of HIV status or geographical location, which meets the World Health Organization’s minimum specifications for a TB triage test. Researchers plan to expand trials to further test the technology’s accuracy, including among people who have other risk factors for TB, as well for people who have both TB and COVID-19.On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a briefing document indicating the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19 among children ages 5 to 11. The data is based on a 10-microgram vaccine dose, a third of the dose used for adults and older children, which minimizes side effects but still induces a strong immune response. The antibody response was comparable to the one seen in individuals 16 to 25 years old, and no new safety problems were identified in the companies' studies. The FDA also released an analysis later Friday showing the protection “would clearly outweigh” the risks of the shot. FDA advisers will meet Tuesday to discuss expanding authorization of the vaccine, currently greenlit for people over 12, to those ages 5 to 11.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel voted late last week to recommend booster shots of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines. The committee voted unanimously Thursday in favor of the FDA granting emergency authorization of a half-dose booster of Moderna’s vaccine, at least six months after the second dose, among people 65 and older, those 18 to 64 with risk factors for severe COVID-19, and those whose jobs put them at high risk for serious complications of COVID-19. The following day, the same panel also recommended a second dose of the J&J vaccine given at least two months after the first shot for individuals 18 years and older. Final FDA authorization rulings on boosters are expected in the coming days.The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed years of progress against tuberculosis (TB), according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2021 Global TB Report, released last week. The report, which includes data from more than 200 countries, reveals that global TB deaths increased in 2020, for the first time in more than a decade, and the number of people newly diagnosed with TB and reported to national governments fell from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020. WHO estimates an additional 4.1 million people infected with TB were not diagnosed or reported. The increase in deaths and decline in diagnoses is attributable to reduced capacity of countries to provide TB services, including diagnosis and treatment, according to WHO. The report also highlights the inadequate global funding for TB diagnostic, treatment, and prevention services, which fell from $5.8 billion in 2019 to $5.3 billion in 2020.On Wednesday, WHO announced a new team, the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, study origins of future outbreaks and epidemics, and guide studies of emerging pathogens more generally. The proposed list of SAGO team members includes 26 researchers, from 26 countries, six of whom were part of the international team that traveled to China earlier this year to study the pandemic’s origins. SAGO will conduct an independent evaluation of the available evidence on the pandemic’s origins and advise WHO about the next series of COVID-19 origin studies, as well as, beyond the current pandemic, advise WHO on the development of a global framework to define and guide studies into the origins of emerging and re-emerging pathogens of epidemic and pandemic potential.