In the last blogs we discussed some general content in the WHO’s most recent TB Report, and most particularly we identified one ..read more

Tucked away (in full sight) within the most recent Global TB Report is a section on ‘asymptomatic TB’. Asymptomatic TB, as far as we are ..read more

The WHO’s annual TB Report was published earlier this month, but this year’s has had little fanfare and almost no media attention ..read more

It's time to sharpen your scythe and cut some mugwort because today is Duan Wu Jie or (more popularly globally today) the ‘Dragon Boat Festival’ a festival which falls on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month after Chinese New year. Duanwu (端午) literally means 'starting horse' — the horse being the fifth of the twelve animals of the Chinese almanac.  in other words, it’s the first "horse day" of the fifth (horse) month and so the whole horse phenomenon is heavily associated with wǔ (五), 'five', which sounds the same as wu (午) 'horse' which all exer ..read more

Moxafrica is pleased to share some news on World Moxa Day.   First of all, things are progressing with the project in Durban, South Africa, with the moxa and ear seed programme working with homeless heroin addicts in the city. The results have been remarkably encouraging and it is gaining increasing interest. The combination of treatments (both appropriately simple, cheap and low tech) are showing themselves to be remarkably powerful in combination.   Secondly a big online event is planned for October – it's called:   A Global Moxa Summit — (A Quiet Revolution of Fire)   ..read more

The above quote comes from Steven Reed, the co-inventor of a ‘new’ TB vaccine that's been seriously hampered in its development by one of the biggest of Big Pharma. The shameful story of its (lack of) development sadly shines a terrible light on how our biomedical system works with such casual indifference to the plight of those most threatened by tuberculosis (while it works so very efficiently for the profit of the pharma companies themselves and so and for the benefit of their shareholders, and so deprives those most in need of its immense and impressive technical expertise). The Background ..read more

Today is World Lung Day (September 25th) This important day was first conceived and created during the 2016 Assembly of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies by its then President Michiaki Mishima and is intended to raise awareness of lung health, something that we have all become more sensitive to courtesy of the SARS- CoV-2 coronavirus, and so it is unquestionably a big deal day. The theme of this World Lung Day for 2023 is ‘Access to prevention and treatment for all. Leave no one behind’ - noble aspirations for sure. Lung disease comes in many treacherous forms: COPD, lung cance ..read more

In many Buddhist traditions it is customary to mark the 49th day after death. Today is the 49th day since we lost Donald Eadie, a treasured member of our little team of Moxafrica trustees. His funeral, which was attended by many, was a very powerful event. There is a link to the funeral service which has already been watched by hundreds of people unable to attend the event themselves - (63) Funeral of Rev'd Donald Eadie - YouTube The last time we saw him (the evening before he died) Donald was very weak and was only able to manage three or four words at a time before running out of breath. Bo ..read more

It remains impossible to get our heads around how little those folk who are unlucky enough to be infected with TB (who also uncoincidentally are predominantly poor) really matter to the authorities (whether at national or global levels) who are entrusted with their protective welfare. Here’s why we say this. Five years ago in 2018, a special High Level Meeting on TB was convened at the UN. At this meeting a cluster of targets and commitments were unanimously agreed by all heads of member states in respect of TB. Five years later, and those targets have been appallingly missed, some of them mas ..read more

We’ve just come across this: the Treatment Action Group’s ‘Tuberculosis Vaccines – Pipeline Report 2022’. It's a terrific analysis of where we are today with new vaccine development for TB. If you're at all interested in global health and equity of provision, we really encourage you to read it (it's not too long), but we hope that TAG won’t mind our extracting some of their excellent text and adding some contextual commentary of our own to it. We’re certainly sure they won’t mind us identifying that the need for new TB vaccine is urgent and what's more isn’t new. The first official target of ..read more