SIALKOT - The District Health Department have detected 520 TB patients in the district.

More than 6,000 persons in the district are in the grip of AIDS and tuberculosis (TB).

The programme was started at six centres in Tamil Nadu

The Chennai-based National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (formerly Tuberculosis Research Centre) has started a pilot testing programme of providing for six months isoniazid TB drug as prophylactic to HIV-positive individuals. People recruited will include those on antiretroviral therapy (ART) too. The programme was started about two months ago at six centres in Tamil Nadu (including two ART centres in Chennai) and it got under way recently in Bangalore, New Delhi and Hyderabad. The ART centres were chosen by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).

High blood pressure (BP) has become the world’s deadliest diseasecausing risk factor.

Non-communicable diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease killed two out of three people in 2010 — a larger share than in 1990, when they were responsible for every second death in the worl

PANJIM: The quarterly meeting of TB forum of the Voluntary Health Association of Goa on Monday identified five villages where steps would be taken to create awareness about tuberculosis and help villagers to move towards elimination of the disease.

The villages are Parra, Karapur-Sarvan, Pariyem-Sanquelim, Betki and Carambolim. Executive Director VHAG Dr Cynthia Pinto said these villages have been identified under Axshya project, which was implemented in Goa in 2011 to improve the reach, visibility and effectiveness of the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) through civil society.

Months after the Union Health Ministry turned down demands of a section of the medical community to devise ways to fight Totally Drug Resistant (TDR) Tuberculosis, an article in the latest issue of

Two new drugs to treat drug-resistant TB are expected to hit the market in 2013. The drugs, Bedaqiline (TMC207) and Delamanid (OPC6783) are practically the first drugs to be developed in nearly 50 years and are expected to improve treatment of DR-TB.

These two investigational TB drugs are entering phase 3 studies and are likely to be submitted to the regulatory authorities this year. Dr Manica Balasegaram, executive director of Medicine Sans Frontier’s (MSF) Access Campaign has expressed confidence that these drugs will make treatment more accessible and affordable.