“It is still possible for public health systems to take a pro-active step, as the Mumbai officials are now doing to stem the problem,” Dr Dewan told India Together. “TB Control in Mumbai can be transformed. The challenge is to ensure that all TB patients get the support they need and that would prevent the emergence of drug resistance strains.";

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To coincide with World TB Day, members of WHO’s STOP TB Department published a piece in a special Tuberculosis and TB/HIV Supplement of the Journal of Infectious Diseases that lays out the case for improving access to TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment services for pregnant women and their children. They call for the following “low-cost, effective interventions” to be made a routine part of the integrated management of pregnancy and child health in much the same way as TB collaborative activities are now part of standard of care for HIV programmes in resource-constrained settings.;

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In the last post, we reviewed the backstory regarding a report in Clinical Infectious Diseases by Udwadia et al on the detection of TB cases at a hospital in Mumbai, India, that lab tests suggested were resistant to all of the anti-TB medications the hospital could get hold of, and which were thus classified as being totally drug resistant-TB (TDR-TB).;

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In what is by now old news, a little more than a month ago, a report in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases from a hospital in Mumbai, India, described several cases of tuberculosis that drug sensitivity testing (DST) in the facility’s lab suggested were resistant to pretty much any anti-TB medication they could throw at it (12 first and second line TB drugs in all).1;

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Two must-read studies published this month reinforce the case for cotrimoxazole prophylaxis in people living with HIV in low and middle-income settings.;

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