- Autores: Couto I, Viveiros M
- Ano de Publicação: 2015
- Journal: Anais do Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical
- Link: http://ihmtweb.ihmt.unl.pt/PublicacoesFB/Anais/Anais2014/index.html#3/z%20
This article reviews the studies on tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, over more than one hundred years of history of this institute. If in the first decades these studies were focused on the public care and support to the local health programs to control tuberculosis in all the countries and provinces where the institute was operating globaly, the formal establishment of a Mycobacteriology group in 1999, leveraged by the installation of a Biosafety Level 3 Mycobacteriology Laboratory, boosted this area of research at the institute. Concurrently, partnerships with hospitals in the Lisbon area, brought to them the benefits of the implementation research of new techniques and methodologies for the early and accurate detection of tuberculosis and other mycobacteriosis. From the work developed over the past 15 years its stands out the implementation and evaluation of new molecular biology based technologies due to the impact made on the diagnosis of tuberculosis in Portugal and in the CPLP countries the establishment of the Working Group on Tuberculosis in the Greater Lisbon Area, involving twelve hospitals in this area; the implementation and evaluation in Portugal of rapid and automated culture systems as well as new molecular methods for the early identification of mycobacteria and screening of mutations that confer drug resistance and ultimately the establishment of a Tuberculosis Laboratories Network at the level of Portugal and the CPLP countries – the FORDILAB-TB – an initiative that deserved, from the on set, the support and encouragement of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Of equal prominence, in view of the impact in the future, is the applied research on the design and testing of new approaches for the early detection and treatment of tuberculosis, including the development and in vitro testing of personalized treatment regimens for tuberculosis and drug-resistant tuberculosis patients.