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Editor’s Choice: World Tuberculosis Day 2021

Tuberculosis is one of the deadliest global epidemics, having claimed the lives of 1.4 million people worldwide with devastating social and economic consequences. Remarkable global health efforts in tuberculosis prevention and control have saved the lives of 63 million people since 2000.

Each year on March 24 marks World Tuberculosis Day to commemorate the date in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced the discovery of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. World tuberculosis day raises awareness of the remaining challenges in eradicating this deadly disease.

The Editors of BMC Medicine are delighted to share with you a selection of key papers that highlight some of the best tuberculosis research published in the journal to mark the world tuberculosis day.

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  1. The prevention of tuberculosis (TB) is key for accelerating current, slow declines in TB burden. The 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on eligibility for preventive therapy to treat latent TB inf...

    Authors: Sandip Mandal, Vineet Bhatia, Mukta Sharma, Partha Pratim Mandal and Nimalan Arinaminpathy
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2020 18:163
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  2. In Madagascar, the multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) surveillance programme was launched in late 2012 wherein previously treated TB cases and symptomatic MDR-TB contacts (hereafter called presumptive M...

    Authors: Astrid M. Knoblauch, Simon Grandjean Lapierre, Daniella Randriamanana, Mamy Serge Raherison, Andrianantenaina Rakotoson, Bienvenue Solofomandimby Raholijaona, Masiarivony Ravaoarimanga, Pascaline Elisabeth Ravololonandriana, Marie-Sylvianne Rabodoarivelo, Orelys Ratsirahonana, Fanjasoa Rakotomanana, Turibio Razafindranaivo, Voahangy Rasolofo and Niaina Rakotosamimanana
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2020 18:173
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  3. Atypical Beijing genotype Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains are widespread in South Africa and have acquired resistance to up to 13 drugs on multiple occasions. It is puzzling that these strains have retained fi...

    Authors: Marisa Klopper, Tim Hermanus Heupink, Grant Hill-Cawthorne, Elizabeth Maria Streicher, Anzaan Dippenaar, Margaretha de Vos, Abdallah Musa Abdallah, Jason Limberis, Matthias Merker, Scott Burns, Stefan Niemann, Keertan Dheda, James Posey, Arnab Pain and Robin Mark Warren
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2020 18:24
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  4. Undiagnosed tuberculosis (TB) remains the most common cause of HIV-related mortality. Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) is being rolled out globally to improve TB diagnostic capacity. However, previous Xpert impact trials...

    Authors: Andrew F. Auld, Tefera Agizew, Anikie Mathoma, Rosanna Boyd, Anand Date, Sherri L. Pals, Christopher Serumola, Unami Mathebula, Heather Alexander, Tedd V. Ellerbrock, Goabaone Rankgoane-Pono, Pontsho Pono, James C. Shepherd, Katherine Fielding, Alison D. Grant and Alyssa Finlay
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2020 18:19
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  5. Tuberculosis (TB) control efforts are hampered by an imperfect understanding of TB epidemiology. The true age distribution of disease is unknown because a large proportion of individuals with active TB remain ...

    Authors: Romain Ragonnet, James M. Trauer, Nicholas Geard, Nick Scott and Emma S. McBryde
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2019 17:208
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  6. India and many other high-burden countries have committed to providing universal access to high-quality diagnosis and drug susceptibility testing (DST) for tuberculosis (TB), but the most cost-effective approa...

    Authors: Hojoon Sohn, Parastu Kasaie, Emily Kendall, Gabriela B. Gomez, Anna Vassall, Madhukar Pai and David Dowdy
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2019 17:155
    Content type: Research article Published on:

    The Commentary to this article has been published in BMC Medicine 2019 17:224

  7. Tuberculosis (TB) remains a significant public health problem in Canadian Inuit communities. In 2016, Canadian Inuit had an incidence rate 35 times the Canadian average. Tobacco use is an important risk factor...

    Authors: Dieynaba S. N’Diaye, Ntwali Placide Nsengiyumva, Aashna Uppal, Olivia Oxlade, Gonzalo G. Alvarez and Kevin Schwartzman
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2019 17:26
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  8. A sizeable fraction of tuberculosis (TB) cases go undiagnosed. By analysing data from enhanced demographic, microbiological and geospatial surveillance of TB registrations, we aimed to identify modifiable pred...

    Authors: Peter MacPherson, McEwen Khundi, Marriott Nliwasa, Augustine T. Choko, Vincent K. Phiri, Emily L. Webb, Peter J. Dodd, Ted Cohen, Rebecca Harris and Elizabeth L. Corbett
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2019 17:21
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  9. The host, microbial, and environmental factors that contribute to variation in tuberculosis (TB) disease are incompletely understood. Accumulating evidence suggests that one driver of geographic variation in T...

    Authors: Kirsten E Wiens, Lauren P Woyczynski, Jorge R Ledesma, Jennifer M Ross, Roberto Zenteno-Cuevas, Amador Goodridge, Irfan Ullah, Barun Mathema, Joel Fleury Djoba Siawaya, Molly H Biehl, Sarah E Ray, Natalia V Bhattacharjee, Nathaniel J Henry, Robert C Reiner Jr, Hmwe H Kyu, Christopher J L Murray…
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2018 16:196
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  10. Tuberculosis (TB) transmission often occurs within a household or community, leading to heterogeneous spatial patterns. However, apparent spatial clustering of TB could reflect ongoing transmission or co-locat...

    Authors: Debebe Shaweno, Malancha Karmakar, Kefyalew Addis Alene, Romain Ragonnet, Archie CA Clements, James M. Trauer, Justin T. Denholm and Emma S. McBryde
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2018 16:193
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  11. Congregate settings may serve as institutional amplifiers of tuberculosis (TB) and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). We analyze spatial, epidemiological, and pathogen genetic data prospectively collec...

    Authors: Joshua L. Warren, Louis Grandjean, David A. J. Moore, Anna Lithgow, Jorge Coronel, Patricia Sheen, Jonathan L. Zelner, Jason R. Andrews and Ted Cohen
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2018 16:122
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  12. Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a common complication of tuberculosis treatment. We utilised data from the REMoxTB clinical trial to describe the incidence of predisposing factors and the natural history i...

    Authors: Conor Duncan Tweed, Genevieve Helen Wills, Angela M. Crook, Rodney Dawson, Andreas H. Diacon, Cheryl E. Louw, Timothy D. McHugh, Carl Mendel, Sarah Meredith, Lerato Mohapi, Michael E. Murphy, Stephen Murray, Sara Murthy, Andrew J. Nunn, Patrick P. J. Phillips, Kasha Singh…
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2018 16:46
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  13. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a growing concern in meeting global targets for TB control. In high-income low-TB-incidence countries, a disproportionate number of MDR-TB cases occur in migrant (f...

    Authors: Laura B. Nellums, Kieran Rustage, Sally Hargreaves and Jon S. Friedland
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2018 16:27
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  14. Depression in tuberculosis increases the risk for adverse health outcomes. However, little is known about comorbid depression and tuberculosis in the general population. Thus, we assessed the association betwe...

    Authors: Ai Koyanagi, Davy Vancampfort, André F. Carvalho, Jordan E. DeVylder, Josep Maria Haro, Damiano Pizzol, Nicola Veronese and Brendon Stubbs
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2017 15:209
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  15. We estimate the proportion of tuberculosis (TB) in England due to recent household transmission, identify factors associated with being a household transmitter, and investigate the impact that identification o...

    Authors: Maeve K. Lalor, Laura F. Anderson, Esther L. Hamblion, Andy Burkitt, Jennifer A. Davidson, Helen Maguire, Ibrahim Abubakar and H. Lucy Thomas
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2017 15:105
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  16. In North America, tuberculosis incidence is now very low and risk to healthcare workers has fallen. Indeed, recent cohort data question routine annual tuberculosis screening in this context. We compared the co...

    Authors: Guillaume A. Mullie, Kevin Schwartzman, Alice Zwerling and Dieynaba S. N’Diaye
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2017 15:104
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  17. RIFAQUIN was a tuberculosis chemotherapy trial in southern Africa including regimens with high-dose rifapentine with moxifloxacin. Here, the application of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is evaluated within RIF...

    Authors: Adam A. Witney, Anna L. E. Bateson, Amina Jindani, Patrick P. J. Phillips, David Coleman, Neil G. Stoker, Philip D. Butcher and Timothy D. McHugh
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2017 15:71
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  18. We previously reported that one-third of HIV-positive adults requiring medical admission to a South African district hospital had laboratory-confirmed tuberculosis (TB) and that almost two-thirds of cases coul...

    Authors: Stephen D. Lawn, Andrew D. Kerkhoff, Rosie Burton, Charlotte Schutz, Andrew Boulle, Monica Vogt, Ankur Gupta-Wright, Mark P. Nicol and Graeme Meintjes
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2017 15:67
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  19. Simple immune capture assays that detect mycobacterial lipoarabinomannan (LAM) antigen in urine are promising new tools for the diagnosis of HIV-associated tuberculosis (HIV-TB). In addition, however, recent p...

    Authors: Ankur Gupta-Wright, Jurgens A. Peters, Clare Flach and Stephen D. Lawn
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2016 14:53
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  20. Tuberculosis (TB) causes significant morbidity and mortality in high-income countries with foreign-born individuals bearing a disproportionate burden of the overall TB case burden in these countries. In this r...

    Authors: Manish Pareek, Christina Greenaway, Teymur Noori, Jose Munoz and Dominik Zenner
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2016 14:48
    Content type: Review Published on:

  21. Drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) remains a major challenge to global health and to healthcare in the UK. In 2014, a total of 6,520 cases of TB were recorded in England, of which 1.4 % were multidrug-resistant ...

    Authors: Adam A. Witney, Catherine A. Cosgrove, Amber Arnold, Jason Hinds, Neil G. Stoker and Philip D. Butcher
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2016 14:46
    Content type: Review Published on:

  22. Combating the spread of drug resistant tuberculosis is a global health priority. Whole genome association studies are being applied to identify genetic determinants of resistance to anti-tuberculosis drugs. Pr...

    Authors: Jody Phelan, Francesc Coll, Ruth McNerney, David B. Ascher, Douglas E. V. Pires, Nick Furnham, Nele Coeck, Grant A. Hill-Cawthorne, Mridul B. Nair, Kim Mallard, Andrew Ramsay, Susana Campino, Martin L. Hibberd, Arnab Pain, Leen Rigouts and Taane G. Clark
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2016 14:31
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  23. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is becoming an important part of epidemiological investigations of infectious diseases due to greater resolution and cost reductions compared to traditional typing approaches. Man...

    Authors: Hollie-Ann Hatherell, Caroline Colijn, Helen R. Stagg, Charlotte Jackson, Joanne R. Winter and Ibrahim Abubakar
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2016 14:21
    Content type: Research article Published on: