News & Events

You can read “Moving the dial on diagnostics: an update from the Lancet Commission on diagnostics” published in The Lancet.

Read the latest opinion piece from Shashika Bandara, Nhial Deng and Madhukar Pai “The Global North is increasingly unsafe for global health meetings” published in The Lancet.

You can read the latest papers from the COVET team “Pre-treatment direct costs for people with tuberculosis during the COVID-19 pandemic in different healthcare settings in Bandung, Indonesia” published in PLoS One, as well as “A methodological review of patient healthcare-seeking journeys from symptom onset to receipt of care” published in BMJ Global Healh.

Congratulations to the many members of the team – present and past – who contributed to the WHO’s “Screening of tuberculosis using computer aided detection software” publication!

You can read “Fighting tuberculosis hand in hand: A call to engage communities affected by TB as essential partners in research” published in PLoS Global Public Health, a collaborative paper to which many people from our team participated.

You can read Ashlyn’s latest published papers “Evidence on Digital HIV Self-Testing From Accuracy to Impact: Updated Systematic Review” in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, as well as “Exploring the diagnostic accuracy of an HIV self-test optimized by a digital app-based solution: Results from a secondary data analysis of a field trial in South Africa” in PLoS Digital Health.

The annual TB Research Day of the McGill International TB Centre was held on March 21st. Many team members presented posters, and two won prizes:

• Lena Faust won the Margaret Becklake Prize (best publications) for her paper “Tuberculosis case notifications and outcomes in Peruvian prisons prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a national-level interrupted time series analysis“
• Jeyashree Kathiresan won the Third Prize (best posters) for her poster “Cost of TB care and equity in distribution of catastrophic TB care costs across income quintiles in India”

Congratulations!

You can read Madhukar Pai’s perspective on John Green’s latest book “Everything is Tuberculosis” in the Lancet, in the piece titled “The injustice of tuberculosis“.

Congratulations to Alexandra Zimmer who successfully defended her PhD thesis! Alex is Madhukar Pai’s 11th PhD graduate! She is set to start a postdoctoral fellowship with Claudia Denkinger (another one of our alumni).

Madhukar Pai interviewed best-selling author John Green about his new book Everything Is Tuberculosis. You can read the interview “John Green Tackles An Injustice Called Tuberculosis” in Forbes, and find more about his books on John Green’s website.

You can read Shashika Bandara’s latest paper “Can we unplug global health education from The Matrix?“, with Ananya Banerjee and Madhukar Pai, in PLOS Global Public Health.

See the blog post “Paul Farmer’s Moral Clarity Offers Hope, Amidst Chaos And Darkness” published by Madhukar Pai in Forbes.

You can read “Maximizing tuberculosis services through private provider engagement – A case study from Pakistan” from Surbhi Sheokand, Poshan Thapa, Petra Heitkamp and colleagues, published in the Journal of Clinical Tuberculosis and Other Mycobacterial Diseases.

Check out the news item published in The Lancet “Historic TB outbreak a wake-up call for US policy makers“, where Madhukar Pai is quoted on this important matter.

Stop TB Canada published the report “Access to essential tuberculosis medicines in Canada: Insights from a national survey of healthcare providers“, to which Luz Villa Castillo and Lena Faust greatly contributed. The report highlighted the lack of access to essential TB drugs in Canada, and lack of child-friendly drug formulations. You can also check out this news item about the report.

You can read Madhukar Pai’s latest blog post “Tuberculosis – new warriors take on an old enemy” published in Springer Nature Research Communities, about 4 new books about TB. Stay tuned for his webinar with all 4 authors on TB day.

Congratulations to Toyin, one of our alumni, who has been appointed Professor of Global Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)!

You can read the latest paper from the COVET team “Health and tuberculosis systems resilience, the role of the private sector and pandemic preparedness: insights from a cross-country qualitative study with policy-makers in India, Indonesia and Nigeria” published in BMJ Global Health.

Congratulations Claudia, one of our alumni, who was promoted to full professor at Heidelberg University!

You can read Jeyashree Kathiresan and colleagues’ new paper “Cost of TB care and equity in distribution of catastrophic TB care costs across income quintiles in India” published in BMC Global Health Research and Policy.

A 5-day intensive workshop on advanced TB diagnostics was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from December 9 to 13. Wits University, along with NHLS and the South African National TB Program (NDOH), hosted the course, with help from the McGill International TB Centre and McGill Global Health Programs. The event was a huge success, thanks to its 138 participants, and its stellar faculty presenters.

Congratulations to Alex, who submitted her PhD thesis today! You can find out more about the various projects she contributed to during her doctoral studies on our Validation and integration of rapid testing for COVID-19 and TB project page and our AI-based analysis of cough for COVID-19 screening in Montreal and Lima project page.

You can read Jeyashree’s latest opinion piece “Boost the TB fight with better undernutrition monitoring” written with Hemant Deepak Shewade, published in The Hindu.

Read the latest paper from Angelina Sassi, Lavanya Huria, Nathaly Aguilera Vasquez, Madhukar Pai, Charity Oga-Omenka and the rest of the COVET team “Private sector tuberculosis care quality during the COVID-19 pandemic: a repeated cross-sectional standardised patients study of adherence to national TB guidelines in urban Nigeria” published in BMJ Global Health.

This year, the Union conference was held in Bali, Indonesia, November 12-16. Our TBPPM team had a booth on-site that welcomed many visitors, and allowed for multiple side-meetings and information-sharing between members in the Community Connect area. It was also a fantastic opportunity to catch up with friends and alumni from the Pai Global TB Group.

You can read Vaidehi Nafade, Paulami Sen and colleagues’ paper “The value of diagnostic imaging for enhancing primary care in low- and middle-income countries” published in eClinicalMedicine.

Congratulations to all the authors – including many alumni from the Pai Global TB Group – on their paper “Building social equity and person-centred innovation into the end TB response” published in The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

Read the latest paper from Madhukar Pai, Shashika Bandara and Catherine Kyobutungi published in The Lancet, titled “Shifting power in global health will require leadership by the Global South and allyship by the Global North“.

You can read the latest paper from the COVET team “The shifting landscape of private healthcare providers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons to strengthen the private sectors engagement for future pandemic and tuberculosis care” published in PLoS Global Public Health.

We’d like to welcome Dr. Shashika Bandara, who is joining our team as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Shashika’s PhD was focused on global health governance, and he will work on our project commissioned by the O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health. Find out more about Shashika on our team’s page.

Congratulations to Ashlyn Beecroft on her paper “Digital HIV self-testing as an exemplar: a perspective on benefits, challenges, and opportunities” published in Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics.

You can read Lena Faust’s latest paper “Case fatality among people with drug-susceptible TB enrolled in a private health sector TB treatment support program in Bihar, India during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic” published in PLoS Global Public Health, with Sophie Huddart and Madhukar Pai among the co-authors.

The entire team wishes all the best to Joel, who is taking a new position at the Ottawa Public Health department! We’re all grateful for his instrumental contributions to the TBPPM Learning Network.

A warm welcome to Jeyashree Kathiresan, a physician from India who is starting an MSc in epidemiology! We are also welcoming Jacquelyn Yushkov, who is joining the team working on a series of systematic reviews on sputum expectoration, Samantha Ayoub, joining the TBPPM project, and Esme Longley, who will be working on TB global health projects. Welcome!

Many alumni are also starting new degrees:

• Maddee Nash: medical school at Queen’s University
• Jacob Bigio: PhD in epidemiology at McGill University
• Rishav Das: PhD in health policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago
• Angie Sassi: PhD in global health implementation science at UW
• Tripti Pande: DrPH at UNC Chapel Hill

Congratulations!