New website launched to collect data on Xpert MTB/RIF use
14 February 2012 | Geneva | Since the WHO endorsement in December 2010 of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay for rapid detection of TB and rifampicin resistance, over 400 GeneXpert instruments have been placed in 47 countries. Consequently, there are now hundreds of “early implementers of Xpert MTB/RIF”, having varied experiences and generating additional evidence on the use of this diagnostic tool. Collectively this information would be invaluable to more effectively guide the thousands of laboratories, hospitals and clinics around the world that may soon be using this technology. The WHO Stop TB Department’s Diagnostics and Laboratory Strengthening Unit (TBL) is inviting early implementers of Xpert MTB/RIF to share some basic information on the ongoing use of their GeneXpert instruments. A special website has been developed and launched today to collect this information online.
Survey of the quality of anti-tuberculosis medicines circulating in selected newly independent states of the former Soviet Union
6 February 2012 | Geneva | The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that nearly half a million multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases emerge worldwide each year as a result of inadequate or poorly administered treatment regimens, insufficient supply or quality of anti-TB medicines, and transmission of drug resistant strains. Newly independent states of the former Soviet Union (NIS) have the highest prevalence rates of MDR-TB, with reported proportions of MDR-TB as high as 28.9% among new and 65.1% among previously treated TB cases.
The WHO Department of Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies, the WHO Stop TB Department, the Stop TB Partnership Secretariat and WHO Regional Office for Europe undertook a survey to investigate the quality of anti-TB medicines in use in selected NIS as one of the potential factors contributing to the development of drug resistance.
Drug-resistant tuberculosis
21 January 2012 | Geneva | WHO's Stop TB Department has published a briefing note on more reported cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, XDR-TB.
In 2006, the first reports of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), an even more severe form of drug resistant TB than multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), began to appear. Within a year of the first reports of XDR-TB, isolated cases were reported in Europe that were resistant to all first-line anti-TB drugs (FLD) and second-line anti-TB drugs (SLD). WHO defines these and recently reported cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis in India as XDR-TB.
World AIDS Day 2011 -
Statement from Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of WHO Stop TB Department
1 December 2011 | Geneva |
Peaks, progress, impact - three words which reflect the concrete result strong leadership and funding have had on the TB epidemic and also on the HIV epidemic over the last decade. But, as we mark World AIDS Day, the threat posed by TB on people living with HIV remains as significant as ever. Last year, 1.1 million people living with HIV fell ill with TB. TB led to the deaths of 350,000 people with HIV in 2010.
Top stories
- New website launched to collect data on Xpert MTB/RIF use
- Survey of the quality of anti-tuberculosis medicines circulating in selected newly independent states of the former Soviet Union
- Drug-resistant tuberculosis
- World AIDS Day 2011 -
Statement from Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of WHO Stop TB Department
Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne infectious disease that is preventable and curable. WHO is working to dramatically reduce the burden of TB, and halve TB deaths and prevalence by 2015, through its Stop TB Strategy and supporting the Global Plan to Stop TB.
