Only 63% of new smear-positive TB cases and only 53% of all new TB cases are detected globally. Scaling up laboratory services to meet the diagnostic challenges of drug-resistant and HIV-associated TB requires a paradigm shift in developing laboratory policy development, setting laboratory norms and standards, guiding and coordinating technical assistance, and accelerating knowledge transfer.
Patient dying of MDR-TB and HIV and her mother in Lesotho. (c) Open Society Institute/Pep Bonet
This is what we stand for. As today’s World TB Day comes to a close (at least in this part of the world), please take a minute to sign up to one of our expert-led communities on GHDonline.org — two focus on fighting and eradicating this deadly scourge (MDR-TB Treatment & Prevention and TB Infection Control).
And if you have a few more minutes, please read “No One Should Die of Tuberculosis in the 21st Century“, an article in the Huffington Post co-authored with Salmaan Keshavjee, MD, Ph.D, Sc.M, former GHDonline moderator, and currently Director of the Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at HMS and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is also a Senior TB Specialist at Partners In Health.