HIV/TB Research Priorities

HIV/TB Research Priorities

The consequences of inattention to TB research are not just embarrassing, they are tragic and shameful," said Dr Tony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at a meeting held in Cape Town just prior to IAS2009. "Generations of research advances and technologies have bypassed the field of TB research. All of the great breakthroughs that we have seen in molecular biology - there was nobody working on it in TB. Nine million people develop active TB each year and yet we still don’t have an effective vaccine. There have been no newly licensed drugs for TB in forty years [with the exception of rifabutin]. The therapeutic regimens, although they work, are cumbersome and prone to the development of drug resistance. The diagnostics are ridiculous, they are antiquated, non-standardised and imprecise."

HATIP described earlier this year, in an article ("HIV & AIDS treatment in practice"), that TB research has long been neglected and under funded. But the participation of Dr Fauci, Nobel Prize winner Dr Françoise Barré-Sinoussi of the Institut Pasteur, and many others from the HIV research establishment was a clear sign that some of the world’s pre-eminent research institutions are finally moving to make TB research a priority. Read the full article