TB Research Dissemination Workshop 2022

On June 30th-July 1, 2022 the research team at Epicentre in Mbarara, Uganda held a two-day workshop about their recent work to address gaps in tuberculosis diagnostics and therapeutics in low-income countries. Sessions included:

• Landscape of TB disease in Uganda: research gaps

• New diagnostic tools and algorithms in adults

• New diagnostic tools and algorithms in children

• Approaches to increasing pediatric TB detection and reducing disease burden

• TB chemotherapeutics

• Perspectives and challenges in TB

To catch up on the presentations, you can view the abstracts through the link below.

Collection Content

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Expanding access to lifesaving new TB tools

Many settings with a high burden of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) lack access to advanced diagnostics and to groundbreaking new treatments. The Collection linked below spotlights work by MSF and collaborators to analyze barriers, identify gaps, and accelerate the roll-out of these tools to people whose lives hang in the balance. Several reports examine price, regulatory, and patent obstacles that persist despite considerable public investment into developing many of these tools. Other authors examine critical remaining weaknesses in care pathways—especially in screening and diagnosis, and particularly in children. Several studies describe new strategies that could be part of the solution, from a pilot program in Tajikisttan that trains family caregivers to treat children with DR-TB at home, to a person-centered care model adapted to a conflict zone in Afghanistan. Lastly, initial findings demonstrate that pregnant women—another vulnerable population—can be effectively treated for DR- and multidrug-resistant TB, improving maternal outcomes without harming neonates.

Nurses spend more time at the bedside than any other healthcare workers and are a cornerstone of quality, person-centered clinical care in MSF health facilities. Through research, MSF has also shown that empowering nurses can also help expand patient access to care. In this collection, we highlight some of the evidence gathered on nurse-led care models at MSF projects, including through strategies that strengthen nurses through innovative training approaches and bedside tools.

Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) remains an especially deadly form of the ancient scourge of TB, while current treatments are long, toxic, and ineffective for half of all patients. Aiming to change this unacceptable status quo, in the mid-2010’s MSF and partners launched three clinical trials to test novel regimens containing the first new TB drugs in decades. On 22 December 2022 the New England Journal of Medicine published findings from TB-PRACTECAL, a three-country randomized controlled trial, showing that a shorter regimen is safer and cured 89% of DR-TB patients, compared with 52% on the standard of care. These findings have already been incorporated into the World Health Organization’s new TB treatment guidelines. A separate study shows that the new regimen is also more cost-effective. Alongside these results the content collection linked below highlights other aspects of the trial, from community engagement strategies that helped shape TB-PRACTECAL to setbacks arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. It also examines urgent challenges in scaling up access to these life-saving drugs, including affordability and patent barriers.

Conference Material

Abstract

Vasiliu A