News on Tuberculosis

Study: Health rules on flying with TB too strict

2010-02-22T09:17:25Z

<div id="subtitle">TB study says US, global health officials too strict on flight rules for TB patients</div><div><p>Provocative new research suggests international rules that bar potentially infectious tuberculosis patients from flying are too stringent and airline passengers are really at little risk from catching TB from a fellow traveler.</p><p>Global and U.S. health authorities also go too far in advising testing of passengers and crew on long flights whe...

Guidelines for controlling TB on airlines a waste: study

2010-02-21T18:15:30Z

<div><p>World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for preventing the spread of tuberculosis through air travel are largely a waste of time and resources, an expert said.</p><p>The WHO recommendations, set down in 2006 and 2008, urge health watchdogs to trace and screen passengers who have sat for longer than eight hours in rows adjacent to someone who has tested positive for pulmonary tuber...

Guidelines for controlling TB on airlines are a waste - study

2010-02-21T17:15:45Z

<div><p>World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for preventing the spread of TB through air travel are largely a waste of time and resources, an expert said on Sunday.</p><p>The WHO recommendations, set down in 2006 and 2008, urge health watchdogs to trace and screen passengers who have sat for longer than eight hours in rows adjacent to someone who has tested positive for pulmonary tuber...

Health workers often decline TB treatment

2010-02-22T09:13:34Z

<div><p>NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Hospital and nursing-home employees who are infected with latent tuberculosis may often decline drug therapy to prevent the disease from becoming active, a new study suggests.</p><p>The study, which followed patients with latent TB at 32 U.S. and Canadian medical clinics, found that ...

Secondhand smoke raises TB risk: study

2010-02-22T10:17:27Z

<div><p>NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Smoking has long been known to boost tuberculosis risk, and a new study from Hong Kong suggests that being exposed to someone else's tobacco smoke also increases the likelihood of contracting the disease.</p><p>Dr. Chi C. Leung of the Wanchai Chest Clinic in Wanchai and colleagues compared T...

China fights growing problem of tuberculosis

2010-02-23T00:53:32Z

<div><p>GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - China, saddled with the world's second largest tuberculosis burden after India, is fighting an uphill battle against drug-resistant forms of the disease which will only drain the country's health budget.</p><p&...

First case of highly drug-resistant TB found in US

2010-02-23T10:57:51Z

<div id="subtitle">First case of extremely drug-resistant TB found in US, other killer diseases return</div><div><p>It started with a cough, an autumn hack that refused to go away.</p><p>Then came the fevers. They bathed and chilled the skinny frame of Oswaldo Juarez, a 19-year-old Peruvian visiti...

Hopes of new drugs, vaccines for tuberculosis

2010-02-23T19:28:34Z

<div><p>CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - In Uganda, health experts are getting laboratories ready and preparing villagers in two districts for a large clinical trial to test the world's first experimental tuberculosis vaccine in nearly a century.</p><p&gt...

Genes may protect some people from TB infection

2010-02-23T20:22:21Z

<div><p>CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - A study involving 128 South African families has identified genetic traits that may protect some people from tuberculosis in a finding that could help lead to a new TB vaccine, scientists said on Saturday.</p>&...

More funds needed for TB tests, drugs, vaccines

2010-02-23T21:10:52Z

<div><p>CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - Health experts on Thursday called for more research funding to develop better diagnostic tests, vaccines and drugs for tuberculosis, which killed 1.8 million people around the world last year.</p><p>While diseases like AIDS and malaria can be diagnosed in...

Marshalls take emergency measures to tackle tuberculosis

2010-02-23T21:21:38Z

<div><p>The government of the Marshalls Islands is taking emergency measures to tackle an outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis in the western Pacific nation, officials said Thursday.</p><p>Only six cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) have so far been confirmed in the tiny nation of around 55,000 people but there are fears it will spread further.</p><p>The cabinet Wednesday authorized 1.9 millio...

Swaziland battles twin plagues of HIV, TB

2010-02-24T12:01:35Z

<div><p>Zodwa Mahlabane meticulously takes out her tablets from small yellow bags and puts them on a white tray.</p><p>She counts 15 pills in different colours, sizes and shapes and uses a large plastic jug full of water to drink her multi-drug resistant tuberculosis medication.</p><p>This is how the 29-year-old starts her day and it is how she finishes it. And that's not even counting the pills she takes for her...

S.Africa battles to curb TB spread

2010-02-24T19:54:31Z

<div><p>Tuberculosis control in South Africa is among the worst in the world with infections tripling in the last decade, the country's deputy health minister said on Monday.</p><p>"TB prevalence has increased almost threefold in the last 10 years. South Africa is amongst the 10 worst performing countries on TB control," the SAPA news agency quoted deputy minister Beijing, China - BILL GATES, former Chairman of Microsoft and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, listens at a signing ceremony for the memorandum of understanding on the collaboration on tuberculosis prevention and treatment in Beijing, China, Wednesday, 1 April 2009. Reuters) - A study in Taiwan has found that smokers are twice as likely to develop active tuberculosis compared to people who have never smoked, prompting calls for policymakers to be tougher on smoking.</p><p>The study tracked nearly 18,000 people in Taiwan representing a general population for more than three ye...

Most drug-resistant TB cases go untested: expert

2010-02-25T22:18:53Z

<div><p>BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - Cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis are underdiagnosed around the world and even among those who have been diagnosed, only a fraction are being treated, a Global Fund official said on Monday.</p><p>"The Global Fund is funding about 25,000 to 30,000 patients but the estimated total num...

Diabetes ups TB risk in children and adolescents

2010-02-25T23:30:26Z

<div><p>DELHI (Reuters Heath) - Nearly one in three children and adolescents with "insulin-dependent" type 1 diabetes have a positive skin test for tuberculosis (TB) and are at risk of developing active TB and spreading the infection to others, according to the results of a study conducted in a TB-endemic area.</p><p>It is unclear whether poor blood sugar control predisposes ...

Parkinson's drugs show promise in resistant TB

2010-02-26T13:59:19Z

<div><p>CHICAGO (Reuters) - Drugs used to treat Parkinson's disease show promise as a new way to stem the rise of drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.</p><p>They said computer models and lab experiments suggest the drugs tolcapone or

WHO paper: TB vaccine could kill babies with HIV

2010-02-26T14:45:44Z

<div id="subtitle">WHO says study finds standard TB vaccine could kill babies with HIV</div><div><p>The World Health Organization says a study has shown that babies with HIV could die if given a standard tuberculosis vaccine.</p><p>WHO says a three-year study in South Africa fo...