Five on Friday | March 24, 2017

What’s cheap and easy to cure, but will kill a person by the time you finish reading this page? Tuberculosis.

Today we commemorate World TB Day. This week, as for the last two weeks, MCN’s Ed Zuroweste, MD and Candace Kugel, CRNP, CNM have been in the Marshall Islands to participate in a screening project sponsored by the CDC and WHO. “We are screening the entire adult population of a densely populated island with a high incidence of TB,” Kugel said by email earlier this week.

Such outreach is critical in the fight against TB, a fight that we should’ve already won. Sadly, worldwide efforts continue to be stymied by lack of funding, public health missteps, and a lack of political will to stamp the deadly disease out -- and in the meantime, 2 million people die each year from TB. In our efforts to promote TB literacy and to encourage the public to take up this important advocacy effort, we offer you the top five TB-related articles and resources that we shared at MCN this week.

1. Del, Director of International Projects, Research, and Development, sent WHO’s new downloadable “Ethics guidance for the implementation of the End TB strategy.”


2. Jillian sent along this piece: Night sweats, bloody cough — and a diagnosis that turned a doctor into an activist.


3. Ricardo, Health Network Manager, forwarded the CDC’s 2017 TB Elimination Champions -- congratulations to the recipients!


4. Jessica, Grant Writer, shared an article on a new study that watched how TB responded to whole genome sequencing. The results “may have implications for the design of M.tuberculosis vaccines that are intended for use in populations with high HIV-1 infection.”


5. Leslie, Health Network Associate, sings that MCN has the TB blues because WHO omitted TB from its list of high-priority antibiotic-resistant pathogens…. But did you know that the TB blues is actually a thing? 

How are you commemorating World TB Day? Share with us how you got friends and colleagues to be more involved in the fight against this deadly pathogen.  Let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Have a safe and healthy weekend!

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