Proponents of critical thinking recount this fable: a daughter asks, “Mother, why do you cut the end off the holiday ham?” Her mother answers, “Because that’s the way Grandma always did it.” The daughter, an inquisitive sort, then asks her grandmother, “Grandma, why do you cut the end off of the holiday ham?” Her grandmother replies, “Because my pan is too small.” In matters of medicine, progre...

Tuberculosis is an opportunistic infection, the minute it finds an immunocompromised host, it flourishes. The risk of tuberculosis is much higher in patients who are human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive. Drug resistance among microbes is testimony to their adaptive skills. In Mycobacterium Tuberculosis the resistance occurs due to random, single step, spontaneous mutation and is invariab...

BACKGROUND Drug-resistant tuberculosis, especially multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), is a major public health problem. Effective management of MDR-TB relies on accurate and rapid diagnosis. In this study, we assessed the diagnostic accuracy of the Genotype MTBDRplus assay in diagnosing MDR-TB in Cameroon, and then discuss on its utility within the diagnostic algorithm for MDR-TB. MET...

BACKGROUND Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR) is emerging as major challenge facing tuberculosis control programs worldwide particularly in Asia and Africa. Findings from different studies on associations of HIV co-infection and drug resistance among patients with TB have been contradictory (discordant). Some institution based studies found strongly incr...

Treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is extremely challenging due to the virulence of the etiologic strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb), the aberrant host immune responses and the diminishing treatment options with TB drugs. New treatment regimens incorporating therapeutics targeting both M. tb and host factors are urgently needed to improve the clinical management o...

Tuberculosis as a social human disease has been known since ancient times. Morbidity and mortality from multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) extensively drug-resistant (XDR-TB) both in RS(Y) the Russian Federation remain high. In recent years, studies have conducted on effectiveness of chemotherapy using drug bedaquiline. State Budgetary Institution Republic Sakha (Yakutia) SPC “Phthisiology”, presc...

I has the largest TB epidemic in the world with almost 1000 TB related deaths everyday or 2 deaths every 3 minutes. Drug resistance is assuming increasing proportions with the prevalence of multi drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (defined as TB resistant to at least both isoniazid (H) and rifampicin (R)) approaching 1.5-2.7% in new and 13-17% in previously treated cases.1 The exact burden of ex...

BACKGROUND Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) hinder the progress of TB control. OBJECTIVE To track the trend of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) prevalence in Zhejiang Province from 1999 to 2013, and identify risk factors of resistance to second-line drugs among MDR-TB patients. DESIGN Four DR-TB surveys had been done in Zhejia...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES There is limited information available about the drug resistance patterns in extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB), especially from high burden countries. This may be due to difficulty in obtaining extrapulmonary specimens and limited facilities for drug susceptibility testing. This study was undertaken to review and report the first and second-line anti-TB drug susceptibil...

Background and objectives: Tuberculosis (TB) is the major public health problem in the world. Each year there are 2-3 million deaths worldwide caused by TB. The increasing incidence of Multi Drug Resistance tuberculosis (MDR-TB) worldwide highlights the urgent need to search for new antituberculosis compounds. It has been reported that medicinal plant, Dracocephalum kotschyi, possesses some ant...