Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis threatens one-third of the world’s population. The World Health Organization declared tuberculosis a global health emergency in 1993. The magnitude of the problem changed dramatically during the 1990s due to deteriorating control in some parts of the world (notably eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union), the spread of HIV, and population growth. Without a coordinated control effort, tuberculosis will infect an estimated 1 billion more people by 2020, killing 70 million.

TDR has supported research on this disease for many years. Currently, our work is being conducted in the following areas:

Evidence for treatment policy for HIV-infected TB patients

Lead discovery for drugs for infectious tropical diseases

Accessible quality-assured diagnostics

Integrated community-based interventions

TB Specimen Bank

TB Specimen Bank New diagnostic tests for TB suitable for low-income settings are urgently needed. Current methods of diagnosis (based on sputum smear microscopy) are both labour-intensive and insensitive.

An important obstacle to the development of new diagnostics tests for TB is the lack of access to reference materials. The WHO/TDR TB Specimen Bank addresses this need by providing an invaluable, growing resource of well-characterized clinical materials for use by academic and commercial test developers.

News

15 October 2009

TB diagnostic studies should address clinical impact outcomes

Expert Reviews editorial

12 August 2009

New TB diagnostics website launched

A comprehensive resource for evidence syntheses, policies, guidelines and research agendas on TB diagnostics