The Union continued to provide a platform for essential research on TB-diabetes in 2017, building on the conversations that started with the launch of The Union’s ‘Call To Action on the Looming Co-epidemic of TB-diabetes’ and the subsequent Summit and Bali Declaration which united more than 100 global health officials and experts behind an international campaign to fight the twin scourge of TB and diabetes.
The Union World Conference on Lung Health highlighted a population-based study – the first of its kind – to investigate whether there is a relationship between TB infection and diabetes. The study concluded that poorly controlled diabetes presents a higher risk for latent TB and that this may be a group to target for latent TB testing and consideration of latent TB therapy.
In addition, The Union’s scientific journals, IJTLD and PHA, published several research articles on TB-diabetes including ‘Diabetes and poor tuberculosis treatment outcomes: issues and implications in data interpretation and analysis’; ‘Diabetes increases the risk of recent-transmission tuberculosis in household contacts in São Paulo, Brazil’; ‘Diabetes and abnormal glucose tolerance in subjects with tuberculosis in a South African urban center’.
UNION COURSES, CONFERENCES AND RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT TB, HIV AND DIABETES
81
Participants from six countries attended three courses on TB-HIV
32
Studies on HIV and diabetes were published through the centre for operational research
28
Union research studies on HIV and TB-HIV were initiated
100+
Sessions or abstracts on TB co-morbidities presented at the Union World Conference