Excellent review on the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines: a mechanistic and public health perspective - The Lancet www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

We are looking for an amazing person to join our team as a Project Manager to support me across a portfolio of child and adolescent TB studies. Use the following link su.ac.za/en/careers-su to apply.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT | Globally, childhood vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives since 1974. In this special briefing, we detail which vaccines are in used in South Africa. www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2026/07/01/i...

SHINGLES VACCINE | A new, more effective shingles vaccine is finally set to hit the market in South Africa. The vaccine, Shingrix, should soon be available at private sector pharmacies, but availability in the public sector seems unlikely for the time being. www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2026/06/25/n...

Exciting opportunity for a Medical Officer and a Study Nurse to join our research team at the Desmond Tutu TB Centre to work on the newly funded DEFIANT study to evaluate the impact of puberty on host immune responses to Mtb. www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44... www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44...

Cape Town Marathon lands Major status in first for Africa

Chronic air pollution exposure (even moderate) and more advanced coronary artery disease pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/...

Perhaps the fact that we are conducting an unprecedented experiment with the only home we have, by digging up and burning massive amounts of fossil fuels that is driving global change at rates 10X faster than the most recent warming of this magnitude that occurred oh about 55 million years ago? 🧐

This BBC article states that "climate change is believed to have played a role in such hot spells as this." Let me fix it: Climate change IS making these hot spells more likely and more dangerous. Scientists have been warning of this for decades. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Tuberculosis kills on a vast scale, but as foreign aid shrinks, countries with a high burden of TB stand to gain a lot by investing more to curb the disease and its heavy social cost @economist.com impact.economist.com/health-socie...

SCIENCE AND STRATEGY STAR | Professor Willem Hanekom tells Spotlight about taking a ventilated young patient to the Sea Point promenade, living with HIV, the need for an African research agenda, and the recurring joy that has defined his career. www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2026/05/07/t...

A Review in Communications Medicine explores Long COVID — which affects more than 400 million people globally — including current knowledge, gaps and future directions for research, diagnosis and treatment. go.nature.com/4unyxtI #medsky 🧪

Bangladesh is in the grip of an explosive measles epidemic, stemming from a catastrophic breakdown in vaccine procurement following the country’s 2024 revolution. The result was nationwide vaccine shortages and plummeting immunization rates. https://scim.ag/4tM2lAr

So we blocked IFNγ in Mtb infected macaques and….the animals were fine. Turns out mice overestimate the importance of IFNγ in TB because IFNγ drives iNOS in mice but not macaques or humans. This means we don’t actually know how T cells suppress Mtb. rdcu.be/ff9GB #tuberculosis #immunology

Beautifully done and important trial. An effective mTb test that utilizes tongue swab specimens will be absolutely transformative for Tb diagnosis especially is resource limited settings. Definitely practice modifying. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

In this mathematical modelling study, Katherine Horton & co assess #TB community screening approaches & their estimated effects on TB incidence & mortality, concluding that methods that capture both infectious & non-infectious TB are needed to achieve sustained case reductions🧪 plos.io/4tuD2SM

In our latest paper in @plosmedicine.org, we explore trade-offs in diagnostic algorithm, coverage, and duration of community screening for #TB, highlighting the importance of symptom-agnostic approaches and the need for strategies to sustain impact when screening ends. plos.io/4tuD2SM

A fascinating long read for World TB Day #tbsky @stoptb.bsky.social @madhupai.bsky.social @treatmentactiongroup.org @tomscriba.bsky.social#tbsky

DATA MUST DRIVE ACTION | South Africa's new TB dashboard is a win for transparency. The data must now help boost TB testing and find the people still missing from care, say leading TB activists. www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2026/03/16/a...

NEW HOPE | For more than a century, the world has relied on a single TB vaccine. That could finally change with top South African researchers playing a key role. Associate Professor Angelique Kany Kany Luabeya explains why this moment matters. www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2026/03/17/t...

"When intending to upload code, some researchers have also accidentally published partial or entire Biobank datasets to GitHub, a popular online code-sharing platform." www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

41 Celsius in Cape Town today

We have a vacancy for Data Scientist position within our dynamic clinical immunology group. To apply visit the UCT online job portal at: www.uct.ac.za

Pretty depressing stuff www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Latest research: Estimating the population impact of new tuberculosis vaccines depending on efficacy against infectious asymptomatic tuberculosis: A modelling study appearing in the @plosmedicine.org journal. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41678562/

#ClimateChange isn’t just melting ice caps. It’s changing pollen seasons, worsening air pollution and increasing breathing problems in South Africa. Learn how to report it accurately — and compellingly. Sign up for our webinar. forms.gle/NTHCHkMnZiG7...

In this modeling study, Allison Portnoy and colleagues investigate the potential impact of reduced international donor funding on the household economic burden of tuberculosis in low- and middle-income countries 🧪 #MedSky #TB plos.io/4ryyBFX

Our recent modelling study found that the estimated impact of new TB vaccines depends on the efficacy to prevent infectious asymptomatic TB. Read more in our paper out now in @plosmedicine.org! journals.plos.org/plosmedicine...

A new paper levels fresh allegations of questionable scientific practices by the Bandim Health Project, an embattled group led by researchers in Denmark that has long studied vaccines in West Africa and has recently become influential in U.S. health policy. https://scim.ag/3ZY7NCR

Almost all of the scientists were previously at US institutions go.nature.com/4qMlrUR

The real story about statin safety from >122,000 RCT participants with individual level data. They can cause new-onset diabetes and muscle pain/weakness, but other than that they are remarkably safe for 62 outcomes. Rare liver function test abnormalities thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Very interesting paper: M. tuberculosis proteins under diversifying selection and the T cell responses that target them. Could these be good TB vaccine antigens? JCI Insight: Rare variable M. tuberculosis antigens induce predominant Th17 responses in human infection insight.jci.org/articles/vie...

Book review 📚 Are health influencers making us sick? go.nature.com/4tsEOoq

US science after a year of Trump A series of graphics reveals how the Trump administration has sought historic cuts to science and the research workforce. go.nature.com/4jSm0ui

Yes, Davos, the playground for rich and famous today was once home for desperate tuberculosis patients seeking a cure in sanatoria

One Year Post-USAID, Global Health Funding Stuck in Limbo www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/one-...

This is a very appealing meeting in Paris later this year... "The complexity of mycobacterial infections: from research to real-world impact" #EMBOComplexInfections #TBSky for the tuberculosis research, but also #NTM #Leprosy #IDSky #ImmunoSky meetings.embo.org/event/26-myc...

Important paper by Björn Corleis. For decades a central tenet of #tuberculosis immunology has that IFNγ-driven iNOS expression in macrophages is the primary mechanism of bacterial control. Turns out this is really only in mice and maybe cattle. It’s not true in most species including humans an NHP.

The Barber lab is looking to hire post-docs to work on #tuberculosis #immunology using murine and NHP models. BSL3 experience not required. Check out our lab in the NIH intramural program in Bethesda MD!

A shortened, four-month course of tuberculosis drug therapy has a higher risk of relapse linked to active lung cavities compared to a standard 6-month protocol, shows a new #ScienceTranslationalMedicine clinical trial of patients in South Africa and China. https://scim.ag/4jv4oo5

“The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left” www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n...

This is an excellent summary of the scientific developments that led to and enabled vaccine development. In my view a must read for anyone who crosses paths with vaccination - ie, everyone. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-go...

Summary of this report in case access is a problem www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hoping the pivotal finding of increased inflammation with #LongCovid will be responsive to tirzepatide (Zepbound) in our ongoing 1,000+ participant randomized, placebo-controlled trial (full enrollment completed in <1 month!) www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natimmunol.nature.com

🚀 The TB Individual Patient Data (IPD) Platform is now on Bluesky! Hosted at UCL and overseen by the UCL Centre for Global Tuberculosis Research, we bring together individual patient data to strengthen TB research, policy, and public health. 🔗 www.ucl.ac.uk/population-h...

If interested in meta-analysis of TB patient data from trials, do get in touch with colleagues at UCL below! 👇 #IDSky #MedSky #TBSky

How fortunate that two of the things I love the most in life are associated with prolonged survival. Plus, a very important "recent" paper. Happy New Year! #IDsky #Medsky open.substack.com/pub/paulsaxm...

Want a 2.5 minute primer on the ingenuity of randomised controlled trials? Of course you do.