Read “Silenced Voices in Global Health” published in ThinkGlobalHealth, from Madhukar Pai and colleagues.
New paper on 4th generation QuantiFERON-TB Gold-Plus
Read the paper “Fourth generation QuantiFERON-TB Gold-Plus: What is the evidence?” published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Jacob Bigio’s first publication as part of the Pai Global TB Group!
Impact of U.S. withdrawal from WHO – Blog post from Madhukar Pai
Find out why “U.S. Withdrawal From WHO Is Sad For Global Health And Bad For America” in Madhu’s blog post in Forbes.
Health care needs after coronavirus in India – Blog post
Read Madhukar Pai and Jishnu Das’ opinion piece “How can India address big surge for health care after coronavirus lockdown?” published on DevEx.
AIDS, TB and malaria – Blog post
Read Madhu’s latest blog post “AIDS, TB And Malaria Set To Get Deadlier Due To Coronavirus” in Forbes.
Missing men with TB – New paper
Read the latest paper from the Standardized Patient project in South Africa “Missing men with tuberculosis: the need to address structural influences and implement targeted and multidimensional interventions” published in BMJ Global Health.
New paper – TB REACH publication with Tripti Pande
Congratulations to Tripti and TB REACH grantees on their publication “Mobilising community networks for early identification of tuberculosis and treatment initiation in Cambodia: an evaluation of a seed-and-recruit model” in ERJ!
Survey of LTBI tools and policies – new paper from Lena Faust
Read Lena and colleagues’ latest paper “How are high burden countries implementing policies and tools for latent tuberculosis infection? A survey of current practices and barriers” published in Health Science Report.
COVID-19 – Op-eds, interviews and more
To counter the media hype, misinformation and confusion around BCG vaccination for COVID-19 (currently unproven to have any protection), Madhu and his team have published a series of op-eds and media interviews:
– Universal BCG vaccination and protection against COVID-19: critique of an ecological study (Nature Microbiology)
– BCG against Coronavirus: Less hype and more evidence, please (Forbes)
– Why a decades-old TB vaccine is getting attention in the fight against Covid-19 (Stat News)
– Does the BCG vaccine work against coronavirus? We just don’t know (Wired)
– No proof yet that BCG benefits against coronavirus, says expert (Q&A in The Hindu)
– Gender & COVID-19: why diversity is critical to solving global health emergencies (WomenLift webinar)
– An old vaccine vs. COVID-19 (The Take, by Al Jazeera)
– A skeptic’s guide to ecologic studies during a pandemic (Forbes)
– The coronavirus pandemic: impact of the lockdown on tuberculosis care (Podcast from the Centre for Policy Research)
Madhu also wrote about ‘Covidisation’ of academic research in Nature Microbiology. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has inspired a flood of research activities, special funding opportunities, and potential career paths. But this ‘Covidisation’ can come at the risk of undermining other areas of research and scholarship.
Other quotes and citations of interest:
– Among the most vulnerable to coronavirus: The tens of millions who carry HIV and tuberculosis (Washington Post)
– Is BCG effective against coronavirus? (India today)
– Study that suggests BCG vaccine may protect against Covid-19 is flawed – TB experts (BizNews)
– After the pandemic: How will COVID-19 transform global health and development? (Devex)
– Can BCG vaccine protect against Covid-19? Here’s why the excitement needs to be tempered (ThePrint)
– Considering BCG vaccination to reduce the impact of COVID-19 (The Lancet)
CIHR fellowship – Congratulations to Sophie Huddart
Congrats to Sophie for winning a CIHR postdoctoral fellowship!