title: Uniting to end the TB epidemic: advances in disease control from prevention to better diagnosis and treatment.
abstract: Tuberculosis is a major global cause of morbidity and mortality. Despite recent advances in containing the epidemic, several challenges continue to slow progress towards elimination including the continuing impact of drug resistant disease, and the lack of appropriate tools. Curtailing the transmission of tuberculosis remains a challenge especially in high burden countries. New developments in measuring correlates of protection are urgently needed to support the evaluation of vaccines. Similarly, despite progress in molecular diagnostics, better tools are required to identify resistance to antibiotics in multi and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis. Whole Genome Sequencing may lead to the next generation of assays to rapidly detect resistance and evaluate transmission. Advances on shortening treatment are hampered by the lack of a biomarker of cure which obviates the current long wait for relapses in trials. New research is urgently needed to support development of new vaccines and better diagnostics tools and shorter treatment for drug sensitive and resistant tuberculosis.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and MRC Clinical Trials Unit, University College London, London, UK. i.abubakar@ucl.ac.uk.|UCL-TB, University College London, London, UK. i.abubakar@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Ibrahim
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Abubakar
authors.affiliation: UCL-TB, University College London, London, UK.|Division of Medicine, University College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lipman
authors.affiliation: UCL-TB, University College London, London, UK.|Centre for Clinical Microbiology, University College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Timothy D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: McHugh
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology and Infection, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.|TB Centre, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fletcher
mesh_terms: D000995:Antitubercular Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D023281:Genomics / Q000639:trends*; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D025202:Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / Q000639:trends; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*
chemical_list: D000995:Antitubercular Agents
keywords: Elimination; Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis; Tuberculosis