Nutrition and Tuberculosis | May 22-24, 2024

COURSE FORMAT

Online. Course will be live to online participants approximately 6:30pm to 9:30pm, Indian Standard Time zone (9:00 am-12:00 pm Montreal, EDT time zone) each day. Live content will be recorded and accessible to participants until July 1, 2024.

DESCRIPTION

TB is a disease with social determinants implicated in both its causation and outcomes. Undernutrition is a key biological expression of social inequality, that is the leading risk factor for TB incidence globally, and a serious comorbidity in patients with TB contributing to poor outcomes. This course will provide state of the art knowledge and evidence on the interactions between TB and nutrition, discuss technical and operational aspects of nutritional assessment, counselling, and provision of nutritional support, and outline areas of research in this emerging field in TB care and prevention.

May 17th: Enrollment for this course is now closed.

COURSE DIRECTOR

Anurag Bhargava, MD, MSc.
Professor, Yenepoya Medical College
Adjunct Professor, Department of Medicine, McGill University

COURSE COORDINATOR

Madhavi Bhargava, MD
Associate Professor, Dept of Community Medicine, Yenepoya Medical College

COURSE FACULTY

• Soumya Swaminathan, MBBS, MD - M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai
• Ashna Ashesh, B.A, LL.B - Lawyer, Public Health Professional, MDR TB Survivor, SATB
• Anura Kurpad, MBBS, MD, PhD, DNB, FRCP - Professor, Dept of Physiology, St John’s Medical College, Bangalore
• Renuka Jayatissa, MD, MSc – Nutritionist and Public Health Specialist, Vice Chancellor at International Institute of Health Sciences
• Chelsie Cintron, MPH - Section of Infectious Diseases, Boston Medical Center and Department of Epidemiology, Brown University School of Public Health
• Bharati Kulkarni, MBBS, PhD - Scientist G and Head, Maternal and Child Health, Indian Council of Medical Research Headquarters, New Delhi
• Finn McQuaid, PhD - Assistant Professor, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Mario Raviglione, MD - Professor of Global Health at the University of Milan, Italy
• Jeyashree Kathiresan, MD - Scientist E, National Institute of Epidemiology – ICMR, Chennai
• Madhavi Bhargava, MD - Associate Professor, Dept of Community Medicine, Yenepoya Medical College; Center of Nutrition Studies, Yenepoya University
• Anurag Bhargava, MSc-Professor, Dept. of Medicine, Yenepoya Medical College

Faculty are still being confirmed and there may be changes to the above list.

CONTENT

Tuberculosis continues to be a public health problem globally with more than 10 million new cases and 1.6 million deaths annually. The challenge of reduction of TB incidence lies in the fact that a large part of the population in high TB burden countries has evidence of TB infection and is at risk of TB disease. In the absence of an effective vaccine and the operational challenges of roll-out of tuberculosis preventive treatment the decline of TB incidence has been only 2-3% annually. Addressing risk factors for progression of TB infection to active TB is a possible public health strategy. The WHO now acknowledges that undernutrition is the leading risk for TB incidence globally accounting for 2.2 million cases annually, and the prevalence of this risk factor has increased post-COVID pandemic according to FAO. Undernutrition is widely prevalent and often severe in patients with active TB in high TB burden countries and a consistent risk factor for TB deaths. However there has been inadequate attention at policy and practice levels to this risk factor. There is recent evidence from the RATIONS trial that nutritional supplementation can have a significant impact on TB incidence and mortality. In this course, participants will learn from experts in clinical medicine and nutrition, public health specialists, researchers from across the globe (including the team from the RATIONS trial) about the various interactions and implications of nutrition in area of tuberculosis care, prevention, research, policy and advocacy. This course will provide knowledge, insights and skills to address this important factor in practice and policy in their local and regional contexts.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of the course, participants will:

• Understand normal nutritional requirements, and causes, types, and consequences of undernutrition.
• Understand the effect of undernutrition on tuberculosis infection and disease, and the effects of tuberculosis on nutritional status.
• Overview of performance of a nutritional assessment with history, anthropometry, and clinical examination, dietary and biochemical assessment,
• Understand nutritional counseling and its application in the context of tuberculosis.
• Understand management of undernutrition including severe undernutrition in patients with tuberculosis.
• Discuss recent research on nutritional supplementation in TB care and prevention, and implementation of nutritional care in the field.
• Cost-effectiveness analysis and modeling the effects of nutritional intervention
• Apply this knowledge and skills to care and prevention of TB in their practice and programmes.

TARGET AUDIENCE

• Students of Global Health, Medicine
• Clinicians, Nurses, National TB program managers
• TB researchers, nutrition professionals and researchers
• TB Champions and advocates from civil society organizations
• Health systems implementers and researchers

ENROLMENT

Limited to 50 online participants.