Dust Storms, Raffles, Fungi

TB in Tidbits News Scan

Tied together

In a detailed piece for the Financial Times, Michael Peel offers a high-level primer on TB and AMR, explaining why these two threats are inherently intertwined:

TB is a potent AMR spreader in part because it is a largely concealed enemy. About 1.8bn people — almost a quarter of the world’s population — are estimated to carry TB bacteria. These cannot be passed on if the infection remains latent, but they can if the bacteria become active and multiply to trigger the disease. When the condition does take hold, symptoms can be mild for a while, allowing time for people to pass it to others unwittingly.

Once TB is diagnosed, treatments are complicated and generally based on a combination of several medicines. That increases the number of possible avenues for AMR to develop.

Peel’s story also features perspectives from several high-profile leaders on the ways the global health community can leverage lessons learned from recent campaigns to advance efforts against these dual threats.

Comorbidity in paradise

IndiaSpend profiles a unique TB program being run in Goa which is aimed at lowering the state’s overall TB mortality rate.

Goa has relatively fewer TB cases as compared to some other states in India, approximately 2,000 per year. However, the TB mortality rate is higher than the all-India figure, as per the figures collated by Goa’s TB department.

The Goa State TB department did an internal analysis of the 201 deaths in 2023. While the maximum number of deaths--30.3% (36)--were associated with type 2 diabetes, another 17.9% (36) of deaths were due to hepatorenal failure--that is, failure of the liver and kidneys--which were associated with alcohol consumption and alcoholic liver disease.

Recognizing the need to tailor TB interventions for two at-risk populations – diabetics and alcoholics – state health officials have focused their efforts on directing these patients into sanitorium-based care settings.

Once admitted to sanitaria, providers can help patients better adhere to TB treatment regimens, while also supporting them with substance abuse recovery, and providing them with insulin or other essential diabetes management tools.

All the family should come in

Writing for BBC Scotland, Andrew Picken resurfaces a 1957 initiative in Glasgow that utilized prizes, raffles, and other incentives to encourage residents to get screened for tuberculosis.

[H]ealth officials embarked on an ambitious "X-ray now" mass-screening campaign that saw more than 700,000 people in five weeks. An army of 12,000 volunteers mobilised nearly three quarters of Glasgow’s population to get checked.

The rapid screening programme in Glasgow involved a total of 37 mobile X-ray units and radiographers seconded from cities across the UK. A publicity blitz about the programme saw loudspeaker vans and an illuminated tram car tour the city, aeroplane banner advertising and two specially-commissioned campaign songs broadcast at football matches.

Everyone who underwent a chest X-ray received a badge and randomly selected people spotted wearing badges received small gifts such as chocolates, chickens, and cigarettes. There were also prize draws for participants which saw refrigerators, TVs, washing machines, holidays, furniture and a car up for grabs.

Picken’s writeup also includes several pictures of the promotional materials used by health officials as part of the highly successful effort, which we encourage you to check out.

Desert dustup

Iran International writes that dust storms may have played a role in at least some of the tuberculosis cases reporting from last year.

At Zabol University of Medical Sciences in Sistan-Baluchistan, the program head reported in August that dust storms in the Sistan region are contributing to an increase in serious diseases, including tuberculosis.

Higher tuberculosis rates, like those in Sistan-Baluchistan and Golestan, are usually driven by a combination of factors. Proximity to high-tuberculosis countries increases exposure through cross-border movement, while limited healthcare access delays diagnosis and treatment. Environmental challenges, such as frequent dust storms, weaken respiratory health, making people more vulnerable. Socioeconomic factors, including poverty and overcrowded living conditions, further facilitate its spread.

Wonders will never cease

In a post for Chemical and Engineering News, Sarah Braner explains the impact of a newly published paper in PLOS Biology could have on future efforts to mitigate tuberculosis:

[Researchers] sampled 1,500 fungi species found in a peat bog in the Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Maine.

All of them were exposed to M. tuberculosis, and the researchers isolated five that secreted a substance that killed the bacteria. Three of the five species secreted patulin, one secreted citrinin, and one secreted nidulalin A; all three of these substances target and inactivate the thiols in M. tuberculosis that are necessary for homeostasis.

Later in her piece, Braner notes that while more research will be needed, the results offer researchers “another starting point to find new antituberculars.”