Making TB research a priority

"The consequences of inattention to TB research are not just embarrassing, they are tragic and shameful. Generations of research advances and technologies have bypassed the field of TB research. All of the great breakthroughs that we have seen in molecular biology - there was nobody working on it in TB.

Nine million people develop active TB each year and yet we still don't have an effective vaccine. There have been no newly licensed drugs for TB in forty years [with the exception of rifabutin]. The therapeutic regimens, although they work, are cumbersome and prone to the development of drug resistance. The diagnostics are ridiculous, they are antiquated, non-standardised and imprecise."

- Dr Tony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at a meeting held in Cape Town just prior to IAS 2009

HIV/TB sessions at IAS 2007

22-24 July 2007 | Sydney, Australia

The TB/HIV Working Group Secretariat of the Stop TB Partnership convened a satellite symposium in conjunction with the 4th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, treatment and prevention in collaboration with the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, Agence nationale de recherches sur le sida (ANRS), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS/TB Epidemic (CREATE), the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership Programme (EDCTP) International AIDS Society, National Institutes of Health and Tibotec. The goals of the symposium were to increase awareness of and interest in, the urgent need to include TB diagnosis, prevention and treatment issues into the HIV clinical research arena, and to discuss with programs and sponsors opportunities for increased focus on HIV-TB coinfection and examples of supportive and facilitating programs they may offer. The panel discussants included Michel Kazatchkine (Executive Director of the Global Fund for AIDS,TB and Malaria), Michel Sidibe (Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS), Debrework Zewdie (Director, Global AIDS Programme, World Bank) and Kevin DeCock (Director of HIV/AIDS Department, WHO).

Agenda | More information | Roadmap

TB/HIV meeting held in conjunction with the 14th conference on retroviruses and opportunistic infections

25 February 2007 | Los Angeles, USA

The Global TB/HIV Working Group of the Stop TB Partnership in collaboration with the Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS TB Epidemic (CREATE) convened a TB/HIV meeting in conjunction with the 14th Conference on retroviruses and opportunistic infections in Los Angeles, USA. The meeting was attended by more than 40 leading researchers in the field and was co-chaired by Dr D. Havlir, Chair of the Global TB/HIV Working Group and Dr S. Lehrman Director, Therapeutics Research Program, Division of AIDS, NIH, USA. The main objective of the meeting was to share and discuss key TB/HIV research priorities including TB prevention in people living with HIV, a screening algorithm to rule out TB, best tools to diagnose latent TB and single dose prophylaxis for people living with HIV.

Meeting report with presentations

TB/HIV research priorities in resource-limited settings

14-15 February 2005 | Geneva, Switzerland

Website

CREATE - Archbishop Desmond Tutu to launch the ZAMSTAR TB/HIV study

15 February 2005 | Cape Town, South Africa

Archbishop Desmond Tutu will officially launch a study of community and household interventions to reduce the impact of HIV related TB at the opening of the Desmond Tutu TB centre in Cape Town. As part of the Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS/Tuberculosis Epidemic (CREATE) this community randomized trial will study the effects of TB/HIV activities at household and community level in Zambia and South Africa over 5 years. For more information on the Zamstar project click here.