25 years of surveillance of drug-resistant tuberculosis: achievements, challenges, and way forward

The way forward for drug-resistant tuberculosis in the Philippines

“…We agree with Dean and colleagues 1 that timely and accurate epidemiological surveillance is central to addressing drug-resistant tuberculosis. Locally, there is a need to build sentinel surveillance systems and integrate next-generation sequencing into the national anti-drug-resistant tuberculosis surveys to document local resistance patterns.…”

“…Dean and colleagues 1 highlighted the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis and treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis, resulting in reduced case notification rates and number of patients receiving treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis. In the Philippines, a lower-middle-income country in southeast Asia where around a million individuals have tuberculosis, disruptions in health services due to the pandemic have severely affected the incidence notification of drug-resistant tuberculosis—the Philippines is one of ten countries accounting for 70% of the gap between the estimated global incidence of drug-resistant tuberculosis and the number of people enrolled in treatment.…”

“…3 However, the implementation of these tests is hampered by insufficient digital surveillance systems that link patients and their clinical data and allow referral to subsequent health facilities for treatment. 1 Furthermore, the lack of Xpert cartridges and long turnaround times have resulted in high rates of loss to follow-up, especially in community-based initiatives. Support for patients with interrupted treatment has not been established, contributing to the prevalence of drug-resistant tuberculosis.…”

Treatment outcomes for multidrug- and rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis in Central and West Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Drug-susceptibility testing coverage has expanded between 2018 and 2019 in five of the six WHO regions except in the African region (WHO, 2020a). Still, it is our impression that data and literature on treatment outcome of MDR/RR-TB in Central and West Africa is sparse although being a region with a massive burden of TB (Dean et al, 2022, Knight et al, 2019, Lange et al, 2022. With the continued emergence of drug-resistant M. tuberculosis as a huge barrier for the goals of the WHO"s End TB Strategy (WHO, 2010), we aimed to evaluate treatment outcome of MDR/RR-TB in Central and West Africa based on the available literature.…”

Localization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis topoisomerase I C-terminal sequence motif required for inhibition by endogenous toxin MazF4

“…Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is the microorganism that causes Tuberculosis (TB), a leading infectious disease in the world with 10.0 million individuals experiencing active-TB, while 1.5 million succumbed in 2020 ( Dean et al, 2022 ). The pathogen’s ability to remain dormant (also known as latent-TB) by eluding the host’s immune system, synergy between TB and AIDS, and active TB’s long 6-month therapy requirement have attributed to TB’s persistence ( Kwan and Ernst, 2011 ; World Health Organization, 2020 ; Seki et al, 2021 ).…”