Adapting essential care programs to Covid-19 pandemic times

Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) remains an especially deadly form of the ancient scourge of TB, while current treatments are long, toxic, and ineffective for half of all patients. Aiming to change this unacceptable status quo, in the mid-2010’s MSF and partners launched three clinical trials to test novel regimens containing the first new TB drugs in decades. On 22 December 2022 the New England Journal of Medicine published findings from TB-PRACTECAL, a three-country randomized controlled trial, showing that a shorter regimen is safer and cured 89% of DR-TB patients, compared with 52% on the standard of care. These findings have already been incorporated into the World Health Organization’s new TB treatment guidelines. A separate study shows that the new regimen is also more cost-effective. Alongside these results the content collection linked below highlights other aspects of the trial, from community engagement strategies that helped shape TB-PRACTECAL to setbacks arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. It also examines urgent challenges in scaling up access to these life-saving drugs, including affordability and patent barriers.

World Malaria Day is April 25th. The theme for 2023 is "Zero malaria: invest, innovate, implement" and the importance of reaching marginalized populations with the tools and strategies that are currently available. This collection highlights research on this theme, especially the latter two "i's": From research on Seasonal Chemoprophylaxis (SMC) and mass drug administration (MDA), to analyzing the reach of gene mutations (HRP2) in new environments, to other interventional research topics, these articles show how innovative approaches can be successfully implemented even in the most challenging settings to fight this global public health threat.