Tuberculosis is still a big problem in Switzerland. Getting people to stick to their treatment is tough. A new idea called Video-Observed Therapy (VOT) might help. It's different from the usual Directly Observed Therapy (DOT). VOT uses video calls to check if patients take their medicine. This way, patients feel less judged and keep their privacy. It also saves time ...
Global health is in trouble. Older people are more at risk. Dangerous diseases like drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) are spreading quietly. And we're not doing enough to prevent illness through simple things like eating well and staying active. Scientists in Sweden and South Africa found a new way to detect TB in breath. It's not perfect, but it's a start. About hal...
Korea has been dealing with tuberculosis (TB) for a long time. To understand how people feel about TB treatment, researchers looked at online questions asked from 2002 to 2024. They used a special kind of computer program called a large language model (LLM) to sort through all the data. People often have many questions and worries about TB medicine. The study found ...
Tuberculosis (TB) and COVID-19 are both nasty lung infections. They can cause a lot of damage to the lungs. Scientists wanted to see what happens when someone has both infections at the same time. They used a special type of lung cell, called A549 cells, to study this. First, they infected the cells with TB bacteria. After a day, they added the COVID-19 virus. They ...
In many developing countries, tuberculosis (TB) often goes undetected or is diagnosed too late. This delay leads to unnecessary suffering, deaths, and further spread of the disease. One promising solution is decentralized testing, which brings accurate TB diagnosis closer to where people live. The Truenat MTB assays are a prime example of this approach. They offer po...
The way our bodies react to tuberculosis (TB) can be very different from one person to another. This is because our genes play a big role in how we fight off infections. A recent study dug deep into this mystery. Researchers looked at how immune cells in our blood react to the TB bacteria. They focused on four important signals that our immune cells send out when the...
In the heart of Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo is battling a major health crisis. It is one of eight countries that together account for two-thirds of the world's tuberculosis (TB) cases. This is a serious problem, especially since many people in Congo struggle to get proper healthcare and TB treatments. So, what do they do? They turn to nature. They use pl...
Tuberculosis, or TB, is a sneaky disease. It can hide in the body, making it tough to spot. Doctors often use sputum cultures to find TB bacteria. But sometimes, these tests come up empty, even when TB is present. This is where things get tricky. New, super-sensitive tests like GeneXpert MTB/RIF Ultra can pick up TB DNA in sputum samples that cultures miss. But what ...
TB is a big problem in South Asia, especially in India and Pakistan. These two countries have a lot of TB cases. But, they need to work together more to fight it. This is because TB doesn't care about borders. It spreads easily between countries. So, India and Pakistan need to join forces to tackle this issue. There are a few big challenges they face. One is multidr...
TB, or tuberculosis, is a serious bacterial infection that spreads easily and is a major global health problem. It is a leading cause of death. The usual ways to spot TB have big problems. They are often complicated, expensive, and not very good at picking up the disease early. This is where electrochemiluminescence, or ECL, comes in. ECL is a fancy way of turning el...