Has the HCV cascade of care changed among people who inject drugs in England since the introduction of direct-acting antivirals?

Background: In England, over 80 % of those with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection have injected drugs. We quantified the HCV cascade of care (CoC) among people who inject drugs (PWID) in England and determined whether this improved after direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) were introduced.

Methods: We analysed data from nine rounds of national annual cross-sectional surveys of PWID recruited from drug services (2011-2019; N = 12,320).

A Rapid Drug Resistance Genotyping Workflow for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Using Targeted Isothermal Amplification and Nanopore Sequencing.

Phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (DST) for tuberculosis (TB) requires weeks to yield results. Although molecular tests rapidly detect drug resistance-associated mutations (DRMs), they are not scalable to cover the full genome and the many DRMs that can predict resistance. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) methods are scalable, but if conducted directly on sputum, typically require a target enrichment step, such as nucleic acid amplification.

Spin-enhanced nanodiamond biosensing for ultrasensitive diagnostics.

The quantum spin properties of nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond enable diverse applications in quantum computing and communications. However, fluorescent nanodiamonds also have attractive properties for in vitro biosensing, including brightness, low cost and selective manipulation of their emission. Nanoparticle-based biosensors are essential for the early detection of disease, but they often lack the required sensitivity.

A sputum sample processing method for community and mobile tuberculosis diagnosis using the Xpert MTB/RIF assay.

http://ow.ly/HOA130mS6LG.