World Medical Association (WMA) has launched a new online refresher course for physicians which will now empower them to diagnose and treat tuberculosis.

The refresher course will provide basic clinical care information for TB including the latest diagnostics, treatment and information about multidrug-resistant TB. It will also provide information on how to ensure patient adherence and infection control and will include many aspects of TB care and management with a global scope so that it can be used across regions.

The course was launched at the WMA's annual General Assembly in New Delhi, India. Dr Julia Seyer, medical adviser at the WMA.

"When we started an online multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) training course in 2006, we discovered that many physicians were missing the most basic knowledge about normal TB. With the disappearance of the disease from large parts of the world, many physicians from the developed world had never even seen a case of TB and had no basic training in diagnosing and treating what is a preventable disease," said Dr Seyer.

"Now that TB has re-emerged as a serious global disease, it is vital that physicians around the world regain the basic knowledge they once had. The course will be useful in developing countries, where the majority of TB cases are, and will serve as a refresher of what physicians may have learned some time ago," added Dr Seyer.

Launching the new course, Dr Lee B Reichman, executive director of the Institute, said that it was written for the WMA by the New Jersey Medical School Global Tuberculosis Institute, USA.

'Around 4,500 people succumb a day with TB and it is affecting the most productive working years, aged 15 to 54'.

The new course, which incorporates key strategies of internationally accepted strategies for management and control of TB, will link to the WMA's MDR-TB course which has been running for the past two years. It is free of charge and can be used by physicians in private practice as well as in the public. Physicians will be able to receive credits for completing the course as part of their continuing medical education programme. Although the course is available only in English at the moment, it will be translated into Spanish, French, Russian and Chinese.

Dr Seyer said that every year nine million new TB cases are being detected and two million deaths. A total of 2 billion people are infected with the disease worldwide. In some parts of the world, 75 per cent of HIV-positive patients were also infected with TB.
The new online course is being financed by an unrestricted educational grant by the Lilly MDR-TB Partnership, which comprises several other organisations who are working together to improve tuberculosis control worldwide and to support the new Global Plan to Stop TB 2006-15.

Dr Patrizia Carlevaro, head of the International Aid Unit for Eli Lilly and Company, said, "Through our partners, the Lilly MDR-TB Partnership is providing health care workers around the world with education to recognise, treat and monitor the spread of TB and MDR-TB. Through this initiative and additional activities which form part of the Partnership's multi-pronged approach, we are confident that we will change the lives of the millions of people affected by TB and MDR-TB across the globe."