The U.S. is likely to fall far short of its benchmark goals toward eliminating tuberculosis as a public health problem, according to data from a nationwide survey.

Cornell researchers are using advanced genetic techniques to better understand the relationship between the bacteria that cause tuberculosis and the human immune system defense cells that engulf them.

Although most scientists believe tuberculosis emerged only several thousand years ago, new research from The University of Texas at Austin reveals the most ancient evidence of the disease has been found in a 500,000-year-old human fossil from Turkey.

Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death due to infectious disease in the world today. It is estimated that 2 billion people are currently infected, and although most people have latent infection, reactivation can occur. This paper by Denise Kirschner and colleagues, publishing in PLoS Computational Biology, conducts virtual clinical trials to examine the causes of reactivation.

Computer analysis of existing drugs may be key to fighting new infectious agents and antibiotic-resistant pathogens like deadly tuberculosis strains and staph ‘superbugs,’ according to researchers in Canada. The use of such “emergency discovery” technology could save time, money and lives during a sudden outbreak or a bioterrorism attack, the scientists said.

University of Alberta researchers stress that all children adopted from outside North America should be screened for tuberculosis. The study shows that in the Canadian province of Alberta, from 2004-2006, 40 per cent of foreign-born children under five years of age who were found to have tuberculosis were international adoptees.

When quizzed about their knowledge in diagnosing tuberculosis and deciding on the best treatment, medical residents in Baltimore and Philadelphia get almost half the answers wrong, according to a survey by TB disease experts at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere.

US medical residents are not proficient at diagnosing and managing tuberculosis (TB), according to a report published in the online open access journal, BMC Infectious Diseases.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator William R. Jacobs and colleagues have produced a genetically altered strain of tuberculosis (TB) that elicits a stronger immune response than the current vaccine, bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). The new vaccine improves survival of infected animals and may help put scientists on track to replace BCG, which has been used for nearly a century although it is largely ineffective.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major killer, causing up to two million deaths worldwide every year. Treatment takes many months and many patients fail to complete the course of drugs prescribed. Now a study published in PLoS Medicine casts new light on the difficulties patients face in trying to stick to the treatment they are given.

The health care system in California could save nearly $1.3 million a year with few adverse public health effects if it discontinued universal tuberculosis skin testing of children entering kindergarten, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

Blood-based antibody detection tests for tuberculosis (TB) have come under the spotlight in a research article published in PLoS Medicine. The authors, based in North America and Europe, conducted a "systematic review and meta-analysis" of studies that have been conducted on the accuracy of the tests, and have concluded that they do not perform well in comparison to standard methods.