Yes, we have the power to end TB!

Robust efforts are essential to sustain and increase the advancements made in battling TB, as well as to tackle persistent issues that have caused the fight against the disease to be uneven. The End TB Strategy proposes that new technologies are to be developed by 2025 to encourage a quick growth in TB occurrence diminishment. This calls for a cross-sectoral focus on creating and distributing suitable medical and programmatic modernizations in a fair manner.

Community engagement in tuberculosis research: the EU-Patient-cEntric clinicAl tRial pLatforms (EU-PEARL) experience.

Objectives: Community representatives are key to ensuring that tuberculosis (TB) research is relevant, culturally sensitive, and appropriate. For all trials (new drugs or treatment regimens, diagnostics, or vaccines) this can result in improvement of recruitment, retention, and adherence to the trial schedule. The early engagement of the community will, later in time, support the process of implementation of new policies designed for successful products.

Developing a Framework for Evaluating Ethical Outcomes of Good Participatory Practices in TB Clinical Drug Trials.

Good Participatory Practice Guidelines for TB Drug Trials (GPP-TB) were issued in 2012, based on similar guidelines for HIV prevention and reflecting growing acceptance of the importance of community engagement and participatory strategies in clinical research. Though the need for such strategies is clear, evaluation of the benefits and burdens are needed. Working with a diverse group of global TB stakeholders including advocates, scientists, and ethicists, we used a Theory of Change approach to develop an evaluation framework for GPP-TB that includes a clearly defined ethical goal, a set of powerful strategies derived from GPP-TB practices for achieving the goal, and outcomes connecting strategies to goal.

Engaging communities in tuberculosis research.

According to a growing consensus among biomedical researchers, community engagement can improve the ethics and outcomes of clinical trials. Although successful efforts to develop community engagement practices in HIV/AIDS research have been reported, little attention has been given to engagement with the community in tuberculosis research. This article aims to draw attention to some existing community engagement initiatives in tuberculosis research and to resources that might help tuberculosis researchers to establish and implement community engagement programmes for their trials.