Despite ongoing efforts, tuberculosis (TB) remains the second leading cause of death from infectious diseases (after COVID-19) and caused 1.6 million deaths in 2021. Of the 10.6 million people estimated to have developed TB in 2021, only 6.4 million of them started treatment and were notified to National TB Programmes - with this treatment gap made even worse by the impact of COVID-19 on TB diagnosis, treatment and care. Research and insights into TB disease diagnosis, incidence and prevalence, as well as advances in implementation of early detection, prevention, treatment and care are important to inform global and public health efforts to ‘Find the missing millions’ and achieve End TB goals.
To capture advances and global efforts in this multi-disciplinary area, BMC Global and Public Health is pleased to announce a call for papers for our upcoming collection entitled ‘Identifying people with tuberculosis and linking to care: finding the missing millions', guest edited by Dr. Rachael Burke, from the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust, and Dr. Finn McQuaid, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
We are now inviting the submission of Research manuscripts of outstanding interest covering the breadth of multi-disciplinary studies and advances in diagnostics, epidemiology, policy, frameworks, and implementation in this area, including:
● Case finding and screening for TB
● Early detection of TB
● Novel diagnostics (including diagnostic algorithms) to identify people with TB
● Linkage of people from diagnosis to TB care
● TB disease outcomes and the impact of screening or new diagnostic strategies on these outcomes
● Modeling the impact of screening and other strategies to identify people with TB on TB epidemiology
● Economic impact and cost-effectiveness studies
● Values and preferences of people accessing TB testing or screening
● Effect of crises on TB screening, diagnosis and linkage to care (including COVID-19, conflict, humanitarian emergencies, and other challenging circumstances)
We encourage work from local, regional and global partnerships and collaboration among scientists from multi-disciplinary fields. We ask that authors be attentive to the use of non-stigmatizing/preferred language in their manuscripts as outlined in the language guide by The Stop TB Partnership.
Submission deadline: 31 August 2023
To submit your manuscript, please use the BMC Global and Public Health online submission system and indicate in your covering letter that you would like the article to be considered for the ‘Identifying people with tuberculosis and linking to care: finding the missing millions' collection. If you would like to enquire about the suitability of a manuscript for consideration, please email bmcglobalpublichealth@biomedcentral.com.
This collection of articles has not been sponsored and articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process. The Guest Editors declare that they have no competing interests. The Guest Editors serve an advisory role to guide the scope of the special issue and commissioned content; final editorial decisions lie with the Chief Editor.