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Tuberculosis (TB) is the
leading cause of death from infectious diseases in adults.
It infects about a third of the world population or
approximately 2 billion people. Its global resurgence
prompted WHO to declare it as a global emergency in 1993. It
is estimated that between the year 2000 and 2020 nearly one
billion people in the world will be newly infected, 200
million people will get sick and 35 million will probably
die. In Malaysia tuberculosis still remains as a major
disease yet to be conquered and poses a challenge to both
scientists and clinicians. The number of TB cases rose from
11,709 in 1996 to 14,908 in 1999. More alarming, the number
of TB co-infected with HIV cases had increased from 329 in
1996 to 690 in 1999, with 202 deaths reported. Management of
TB is challenging due to various factors, including poor
compliance, inadequate understanding of TB and its treatment
by the patients, social and economic factors, complexity of
the treatment, occurrence of adverse effects or drug
interactions and insufficient communication between patients
and healthcare providers. It is clear that systematic
research needs to be carried out to identify solutions to
these challenges.
TBRG
was formed on the 7th Jan, 2003. The main
objective of TBRG is to encourage teamwork among
members in enhancing knowledge on TB through various areas
of research. Thus the members consist of academic staff (of
various speciality - microbiology, chemistry, pharmacology,
pharmaceutical technology, biochemistry, epidemiology,
social pharmacy, structural bioinformatics) and post
graduates who are directly involved in TB research.
TBRG
meets once every month whereby
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postgraduates present their research projects,
followed by a question-answer session
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issues/articles related to TB are discussed with the
intention of updating members on the knowledge of TB
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ideas are shared among members in the application of
grants/funds and in obtaining contacts/collaboration with
National or International organisations.
The
spirit of teamwork amongst members is also supported by the
sharing of grants and co-supervision of students. |
