News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Delegates from 193 countries met today in Geneva at the start of the World Health Assembly (WHA), which will address several infectious disease topics, including a report from an independent pandemic review committee, a virus-sharing agreement, and the fate of the world's remaining smallpox virus stocks.

(CIDRAP News) – Comparison of an interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) assay for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) with the standard tuberculin skin test (TST) suggests that the interferon assay is less likely to produce false-positive results in people with prior BCG vaccination or reactivity to nontuberculous mycobacteria, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.