Final programme for next month’s conference in Cancún now online!

The final programme for the upcoming 40th Union World Conference on Lung Health detailing sessions on this year’s theme “Poverty and Lung Health” and other topics is now online. Access the final programme by clicking here.
The conference, which will take place from 3-7 December, will offer a Special Guest Lecture, 3 plenary sessions, 10 post-graduate courses, 11 workshops, 7 Meet the Experts sessions, 53 symposia and 49 sessions based on abstracts. Twelve symposia will have simultaneous translation from English to Spanish. Six symposia and 2 workshops will also be offered only in Spanish; these will take place concurrently with other sessions.

Host city Cancún is in a beautiful seaside location, and the modern Cancún Convention & Exhibitions Center is ideal for a stimulating conference. Some meetings, including the Stop TB Symposium, on Thursday, 3 December, will be held in the nearby Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach Hotel. Onsite registration will begin on Thursday, 3 December, at 14:00. Pre-registration is now closed. .


The deadline for online submission of sessions (symposia, workshops and post-graduate courses) for the 2010 World Conference has been extended to 21 November 2009. Proposals addressing the theme of “Tuberculosis, HIV and lung health: from research and innovations to solutions” are invited. The 41st Union World Conference on Lung Health will take place on 11–15 November 2010 in Berlin, Germany. For a direct access to the guidelines and to submit your sessions, click here.

41st Union World Conference on Lung Health

Online submission deadline for 2010 conference extended to 21 November
The deadline for online submission of sessions (symposia, workshops and post-graduate courses) for the 2010 World Conference has been extended to 21 November 2009. Proposals addressing the theme of “Tuberculosis, HIV and lung health: from research and innovations to solutions” are invited. The 41st Union World Conference on Lung Health will take place on 11–15 November 2010 in Berlin, Germany. For a direct access to the guidelines and to submit your sessions, click here.

The 1st World Pneumonia Day: actions not answers are needed
More children die from pneumonia than from measles, malaria and HIV combined and, according to WHO, US$ 39 billion will be required to address this problem. These are some of the messages that were heard at events around the world on the 1st World Pneumonia Day, 2 November 2009.

Actions, not new answers, are needed to improve the results of child pneumonia treatment, according to a November 2009 IJTLD editorial by Child Lung Health Division head Penny Enarson et al. You may download “Who Speaks for the Children?” for free, along with a second editorial, “Pneumonia prevention gets a fresh opportunity” by Ciro A de Quadros and Orin S Levine.

To read The Union press release on World Pneumonia Day, click here.


Malawi Child Lung Health Programme described in PLoS Medicine
More than 1 in 5 child deaths in low-income countries are due to pneumonia. This death rate could be reduced if all affected children received effective pneumonia treatment, which includes standard case management, antibiotics and oxygen therapy. The Union developed the Child Lung Health Programme, a health service delivery approach based on The Union TB model, to better manage child pneumonia. In Malawi, where the CLH was first tested, the case fatality rate for child pneumonia dropped by 54.8% between 2000 and 2005 and has now fallen by 60%, demonstrating the sustainability of the approach.
The CLH in Malawi is described in an article in the 10 November 2009 issue of PLoS Medicine. You may download this article at no charge: “Development and Implementation of a National Programme for the Management of Severe and Very Severe Pneumonia in Children in Malawi” by Penelope Marjorie Enarson, Robert Gie, Donald A. Enarson and Charles Mwansambo. Click here to read the article.


Asthma Guide now in Chinese
Management of asthma: a guide to the essentials of good clinical practice is now available in Chinese as a free downloadable guide. This 3rd edition of the guide addresses issues raised at the launch of the Asthma Drug Facility (ADF); treatment guidelines have been updated, given the availability of chlorofluorocarbon-free (CFC-free), metered-dose inhalers; and simpler tools, including an electronic database, have been developed for monitoring patients treated with asthma medicines purchased through the ADF. This edition also incorporates findings gained through the evaluation of the implementation of the guide. To download the Chinese edition, click here.

The 3rd edition of the asthma guide is also available in English, French and Spanish. For more information about these and other Union publications, click here.

World AIDS Day on 1 December focuses on access and human rights
The theme for World AIDS Day on 1 December 2009 is 'Universal Access and Human Rights'. World AIDS Day is an important occasion for reminding people of the continuing toll of this disease. According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 33.2 million people living with HIV, and one-third of them are also infected with M tuberculosis. The vast majority of these people live in low- and middle-income countries. The Union’s HIV Department was created in 2002 to address the co-epidemics of TB and HIV. Its successful Integrated HIV Care for TB Patients Living with HIV/AIDS Programme has been implemented in Myanmar, Benin, Zimbabwe, DR Congo and Uganda. Read more. . .
For more about World AIDS Day, please click here, and to know more about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, please click here.

IHC Programme in Myanmar continues to grow
Between June and September, 361 new patients were enrolled in the Integrated HIV Care for TB Patients Living with HIV/AIDS (IHC) Programme in Myanmar, and 330 patients were started on anti-retroviral treatment (ART). Local facilities for TB-HIV treatment have been improved. The HIV outpatient rooms at Mandalay General Hospital and Mandalay Teaching Hospital have been renovated, taking into account infection control procedures. Patients also now benefit from a large waiting area and a comfortable consultation room. In addition, the Isoniazid prophylaxis treatment (IPT) programme piloted by WHO in 9 townships (7 in Mandalay) started at the end of August 2009. The Union Myanmar Office is seeking funds to purchase motorbikes for use in tracing defaulters.

Union experts contribute to comprehensive new TB textbook
Numerous Union members have been involved in a recent effort to provide a comprehensive clinical text that translates the tremendous progress in knowledge and advances that have been made in tuberculosis research into practical clinical guidance. In their 2009 textbook Tuberculosis: A Comprehensive Clinical Reference, Chief Editors Professors Simon Schaaf and Alimuddin Zumla have combined their extensive pediatric and adult expertise, invited six other experts with diverse specialist areas as associate editors, and created a unique textbook that deals with every clinical and managerial aspect of tuberculosis. Read more. . .

EAG involved in course and two symposia at the World Conference
The Ethics Advisory Group (EAG) was established to advise The Union about ethical issues encountered in the course of its activities. Where Union staff or consultants have a stake at any level in research, the protocols are required to be submitted for approval to the EAG. The EAG is mandated to promote ethical thinking and action in The Union through publications, conference sessions and courses. It consists of members of varying professional and experience backgrounds from different geographic regions. A small panel of consultants are available.

This year the EAG has organised a post-graduate course on public health ethics at the World Conference. This will be held on Friday, 4 December from 9:00-17:00. The EAG will participate in two symposia, one with the WHO Ethics Taskforce on “Addressing ethical issues in TB control” to be held on Sunday, 6 December from 14:00–16:15; the other on Operational Research takes place on Sunday, 7 December, from 9:00–11:15. For details, please click here.

22 Union experts discuss the IPT challenges and implementation issues

Isoniazid preventive therapy or IPT is recognised as an important component of collaborative TB-HIV activities to reduce the burden of tuberculosis in people living with HIV. However, there has been little in the way of IPT implementation at country level. This failure has resulted in a recent call to arms under the banner title of “the Three I’s”: Infection control to prevent hospital-based transmission of TB in health care settings; Intensified TB case finding and Isoniazid preventive therapy. The consultants at The Union published a paper in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease in August 2009 reviewing the background of IPT, discussing the important challenges and highlighting several research questions that currently remain unanswered. They also offer practical suggestions about how to scale up IPT in the field. Read more. . .

Union Myanmar Country Office collaborating with the COR
The Union’s Centre for Operational Research and the Myanmar Office have been collaborating since June 2009 on an operational research project that both provides valuable data and increases the human resources available to the Integrated HIV Care for Tuberculosis Patients Living with HIV/AIDS (IHC) Programme in Myanmar. The COR is supporting the salaries of five IHC facilitators in order to collect data on the progress of the TB-HIV co-infected patients in the current cohort. The goal is to understand the success factors and challenges of the IHC programme approach. The programme won an award ifor Business Excellence in 2008 from the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.

Dr Philippe Clevenbergh, director of the Union Myanmar Office gave presentations on the programme at a WHO TB-HIV meeting in August and the 9th International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, both in Bali. Funding is being sought to expand and continue the programme, which was founded in Myanmar in 2005.

Smokefree India: One year later, where are we?
One year after the landmark mandate by the Indian government to ban smoking in public places, what have we achieved for a smokefree India? What are the successes? What are the barriers? How do we know when a city is smoke-free?
A workshop was organised to address these questions on 12–13 October in Goa, India. The goal was to assess the first year of implementing and enforcing the new anti-tobacco legislation and propose next steps to improve efforts towards a smokefree India. Participants included State Nodal Officers for tobacco control, enforcement and legal officials, senior health officers representing smokefree jurisdictions, tobacco control experts from civil society, recipients of Bloomberg Initiative (BI) grants in India and BI partners. The workshop report is under preparation.

Participant profile: A GFATM coordinator talks about the IMDP

Dr Dance Gudeva Nikovska, a GFATM coordinator from Macedonia was a participant in the IMDP Budget Planning and Project Management course in 2008. In this profile about her experience, she says:
“Since the course, I have changed almost all of my reporting forms based on what was presented during the course. Some of the instructors were real encyclopedias of knowledge and their experience was applicable to any setting and programme in TB control”.
Read more. . .

International Management Course for
National Tuberculosis Programmes (NTPs) in French
This course for NTPs in French-speaking countries is organised to strengthen the competencies of the heads of the NTPs in leadership, organisation and management. It focuses on how to motivate staff, build strong teams, negotiate and bring stakeholders together. It provides keys to analyse the internal organisation of a TB programme, as well as the external organisations that play an important role in TB control, in particular the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM).
Dates: 3-8 May 2010
Location: Cotonou, Benin
Application deadline: 28 February 2010
Language: French
Max. no. of participants: 20
For more information about the course, please click here.
If you have questions, please write to technical-courses@theunion.org

International Course on the Management of Childhood Lung Disease
This 10-day course teaches a standardised approach and plan of action for the management of lung disease in children, particularly in high-burden/ low-income countries. By the end of the course, each participant will have developed a written plan outlining a programme for managing children aged 0 to 59 months with lung disease. The plans will cover pneumonia, TB, HIV-related lung disease and asthma, as well as major co-morbid conditions; and it will reflect the priorities of the participant’s country, indicating the domain, setting, policies, case management strategy and management process. This course will be offered in 2010 in Lilongwe, Malawi. The instruction will be in English. Participation will be limited to 20. For details, please click here.
If you have questions, please write to technical-courses@theunion.org

International Course on the Epidemiology and Control of Tuberculosis
Dates: 15-23 March 2010
Location: San Salvador, El Salvador
Application deadline: 15 January 2010
Language: Spanish
Max. no. of participants: 30
For more information about the course, please click here.
If you have questions, please write to technical-courses@theunion.org

Visit the membership booth at The Union Village in Cancún to join The Union or renew for 2010!
In The Union Village at the World Conference, you will be able to learn more about the activities of The Union Regions and Scientific Sections this year. You can also help plan activities for the coming year by attending your Region, Section, Sub-Section and/or Working Group meetings held during the conference. At the General Assembly, you can hear about and vote on plans for The Union in 2010.

Don’t miss out on these opportunities to be part of The Union’s 90-year history of service and innovation in public health. Join or renew your membership at the membership booth in The Union Village – or online now!

Membership Services
membership@theunion.org

14th Conference of The Union North America Region
Dates: 11-13 March 2010
Location: Orlando, Florida
Theme: “Under One Sun: Looking Ahead, Working Together, Moving Forward”
The preliminary programme is now online here.
If you have questions, please write to Conference Secretariat.

State of the Art series on drug resistance begins this month
In this issue of the Journal, in addition to two editorials heralding the latest new UN Day, World Pneumonia Day, a third editorial by Chen-Yuan Chiang introduces a series of State of the Art articles on drug resistance, at the same time calling for stronger controls on the use of fluoroquinolones to prevent MDR- and XDR-TB.

The first article in the series, by Drs Zhang and Yew, discusses the mechanisms of drug resistance, concluding that more financial and human resources need to go into deepening our understanding of MDR- and XDR-TB, to enable the development of rapid molecular diagnostic tools and furnish possible insights into new drug development for the treatment of TB.

Record 1.
TI: Who speaks for the children? [Editorial]
AU: Enarson, Penny; Duke, Trevor; Graham, Stephen M.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 2.
TI: Pneumonia prevention gets a fresh opportunity [Editorial]
AU: de Quadros, Ciro A.; Levine, Orin S.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 3.
TI: State of the Art series on drug-resistant tuberculosis: its time to protect fluoroquinolones [Editorial]
AU: Chiang, Chen-Yuan
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 4.
TI: Mechanisms of drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis [State of the art series. Drug-resistant tuberculosis. Edited by C-Y. Chiang. Number 1 in the series]
AU: Zhang, Y.; Yew, W.W.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 5.
TI: Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccine-related disease in HIV-infected children: a systematic review [Review article]
AU: Azzopardi, P.; Bennett, C.M.; Graham, S.M.; Duke, T.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 6.
TI: Wade Hampton Frost and the index case concept [Founders of our knowledge]
AU: Daniel, T.M.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 7.
TI: First documentation of isoniazid reversion in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
AU: Richardson, E.T.; Lin, S-Y.G.; Pinsky, B.A.; Desmond, E.; Banaei, N.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 8.
TI: Ethionamide cross- and co-resistance in children with isoniazid-resistant tuberculosis
AU: Schaaf, H.S.; Victor, T.C.; Venter, A.; Brittle, W.; Jordaan, A.M.; Hesseling, A.C.; Marais, B.J.; van Helden, P.D.; Donald, P.R.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 9.
TI: GLS/IL-12-modified Mycobacterium smegmatis as a novel anti-tuberculosis immunotherapeutic vaccine
AU: Yang, C.; He, Y.L.; Zhang, L.; Xu, L.; Yi, Z.; Wang, Y.; Li, N.; Zhu, D.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 10.
TI: Assessment of global capacity to conduct tuberculosis drug development trials: do we have what it takes?
AU: van Niekerk, C.; Ginsberg, A.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 11.
TI: Fine-needle aspiration biopsy: a first-line diagnostic procedure in paediatric tuberculosis suspects with peripheral lymphadenopathy?
AU: Wright, C.A.; Hesseling, A.C.; Bamford, C.; Burgess, S.M.; Warren, R.; Marais, B.J.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 12.
TI: The role of chest radiography in the suspicion for and diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in intensive care units
AU: Wu, J-Y.; Ku, S-C.; Shu, C-C.; Fan, J-Y.; Chen, H-Y.; Chen, Y-C.; Yu, C-J.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 13.
TI: Radiological presentation of pulmonary tuberculosis infected by the W-Beijing Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain
AU: Feng, J-Y.; Su, W-J.; Liu, L-Y.; Tsai, C-C.; Chang, S-C.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 14.
TI: Quantitative differences in sputum smear microscopy results for acid-fast bacilli by age and sex in four countries
AU: Rieder, H.L.; Lauritsen, J.M.; Naranbat, N.; Katamba, A.; Laticevschi, D.; Mabaera, B.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 15.
TI: Evaluating an active case-finding strategy to identify smear-positive tuberculosis in rural Ethiopia
AU: Yimer, S.; Holm-Hansen, C.; Yimaldu, T.; Bjune, G.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 16.
TI: Drug prescribing practices for tuberculosis in Uzbekistan
AU: Hasker, E.; Khodjikhanov, M.; Usarova, S.; Asamidinov, U.; Yuldashova, U.; van der Werf, M.J.; Uzakova, G.; Veen, J.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 17.
TI: Interferon-gamma release assay test characteristics depend upon the prevalence of active tuberculosis
AU: Davidow, A.L.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 18.
TI: Evaluation of an interferon-gamma release assay, T-SPOT.TB, in a population with a low prevalence of tuberculosis
AU: Bienek, D.R.; Chang, C.K.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 19.
TI: Clinical evaluation of the QuantiFERON-TB Gold test in patients with non-tuberculous mycobacterial disease
AU: Kobashi, Y.; Mouri, K.; Yagi, S.; Obase, Y.; Miyashita, N.; Okimoto, N.; Matsushima, T.; Kageoka, T.; Oka, M.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 20.
TI: QuantiFERON-TB Gold in the identification of latent tuberculosis infection in rheumatoid arthritis: a pilot study
AU: Shovman, O.; Anouk, M.; Vinnitsky, N.; Arad, U.; Paran, D.; Litinsky, I.; Caspi, D.; Elkayam, O.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 21.
TI: Tobacco use and its determinants in HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy in West African countries
AU: Jaquet, A.; Ekouevi, D.K.; Aboubakrine, M.; Bashi, J.; Messou, E.; Maiga, M.; Traore, H.A.; Zannou, M.; Guehi, C.; Ba-Gomis, F.O.; Minga, A.; Allou, G.; Eholie, S.P.; Dabis, F.; Bissagnene, E.; Sasco, A.J.
URL: Click here to access the article

Record 22.
TI: Molecular characterisation of rifampicin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from Morocco [Technical note]
AU: Kourout, M.; Chaoui, I.; Sabouni, R.; Lahlou, O.; El Mzibri, M.; Jordaan, A.; Victor, T.C.; Akrim, M.; El Aouad, R.
URL: Click here to access the article