Ethics and human rights considerations regarding involuntary isolation of people with TB

Involuntary isolation of people with tuberculosis is rarely medically required, ethically permitted or justified on the ground of human rights law. The rare circumstances that do call for involuntary isolation must only occur once a number of conditions are met. These include just procedural protections and ensuring that all other options have been exhausted before resorting to involuntary isolation. This article is intended to outline for healthcare workers, policy makers and advocates the ethical reasoning behind isolation and involuntary isolation, as well as describing the requisite human rights laws that impinge on the topic. Finally, we present a list of conditions that must be met to justify involuntary isolation on the grounds of both ethics and human rights.

Health care gaps in the global burden of drug-resistant tuberculosis

The drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) cascade-from estimated or incident cases to numbers successfully treated or disease-free survival-has long been characterised by sharp declines at each step in the cascade. The losses along the cascade vary across different settings, and the reasons why some countries have a higher burden of DR-TB are complex and multifactorial; broadly, weak health systems, inadequate financing and poverty all impact differential access to DR-TB care. Within a human rights framework that mandates the right to health and the right to benefit from scientific progress, the aim of this review is to focus on describing inequities in access to DR-TB care at critical points in the cascade.