BARCELONA INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL HEALTH (ISGLOBAL) The ‘Xpert Ultra’ molecular test has a greater capacity than its predecessor (‘Xpert MTB/RIF’) in detecting tuberculosis cases, either passively (i.e. people who attend the hospital with disease symptoms) or actively (searching for possible causes in the community among contacts of cases). This is the main conclusion of a...
Tag: <span>Tuberculosis</span>
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Medical Myths: All about tuberculosis
Written by Tim Newman on March 24, 2021 — Fact checked by Alexandra Sanfins, Ph.D. March 24 is World Tuberculosis Day, so in today’s edition of our Medical Myths series, we will focus on some of the misunderstandings associated with tuberculosis (TB). We cover the role of genetics, treatment, transmission, and more. Design by Diego Sabogal TB is a bacterial infection....
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Tuberculosis: New biomarker indicates individual treatment duration
GERMAN CENTER FOR INFECTION RESEARCH IMAGE: CHRISTOPH LANGE (LEFT) EXAMINES A PATIENT. CREDIT: RESEARCH CENTER BORSTEL When can tuberculosis therapy be stopped without risk of relapse? Doctors are faced with this question time and again, because the lack of detection of the tuberculosis pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis is no guarantee for a permanent cure of the...
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Newly found “keyhole” could starve the bacteria behind tuberculosis
By Nick Lavars November 25, 2020 Facebook Twitter Flipboard LinkedIn An impression of Mycobacterium tuberculosis,the bacteria that causes tuberculosisiLexx/DepositphotosVIEW 1 IMAGES While drugs are available to treat tuberculosis, like so many other bacterial infections the disease is becoming more and more resistant to the best medications currently on offer. Scientists at Canada’s University of Guelph have...
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Tuberculosis screening needed for methotrexate users in at-risk locales
AMERICAN COLLEGE OF RHEUMATOLOGY ATLANTA — New research presented at ACR Convergence, the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting, shows that tuberculosis (TB) screening and ongoing clinical care is needed for people on methotrexate who live in areas where the highly infectious illness is common. Methotrexate users who also take corticosteroids or other immunosuppressant therapies are at...
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An algorithm that predicts the chances of a person with a latent infection developing tuberculosis
by Bob Yirka , Medical Xpress An international team of researchers has developed an algorithm that can be used to predict the chances of a person with a latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection developing tuberculosis (TB). In their paper published in the journal Nature Medicine, the group describes surveying thousands of people from multiple countries to amass data on...
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Making tuberculosis more susceptible to antibiotics
Every living cell is coated with a distinctive array of carbohydrates, which serves as a unique cellular “ID” and helps to manage the cell’s interactions with other cells. MIT chemists have now discovered that changing the length of these carbohydrates can dramatically affect their function. In a study of mycobacteria, the type of bacteria that...
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‘Harmless’ bacteria turning deadly
James Cook University researchers are warning microorganisms previously thought to be benign are becoming more dangerous worldwide – and especially in the tropics. Professor John Miles from JCU’s Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine said diseases caused by non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) have been steadily increasing globally. “NTMs are the lesser-known cousins of tuberculosis. They...
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If J&J really wants to support nurses, it should make the TB drug bedaquiline affordable
By SASHA CUTTLER, MARY MAGEE, and GUY VANDENBERGMAY 18, 2020 As nurses who worked in 5B, the first U.S. hospital ward dedicated HIV/AIDS, which opened in San Francisco General Hospital in 1983, we have been directly affected in profound ways by the disease and its opportunistic infections. One of us is HIV-positive, infected from exposure...
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Blocking the iron transport could stop tuberculosis
UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH One of the most devastating pathogens that lives inside human cells is Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacillus that causes tuberculosis. According to the World Health Organization, 1.5 million people died in 2019 from this disease that generally affects the lungs. The rise of multidrug resistant M. tuberculosis strains, which are resistant to many...