After 22 years as Executive Director of The Union, Dr Nils E Billo announced his decision to retire at a retreat of the organisation's Board of Directors on 7 June. The Board has appointed José Luis Castro, Deputy Executive Director, to serve as Interim Executive Director while a search is undertaken for a permanent Executive Director.

A clinical trial to assess a 9-month standardised treatment regimen for MDR-TB has begun in South Africa, Ethiopia and Vietnam. The trial conducted by The Union's TREAT-TB initiative will involve 400 patients in Africa and Asia.

The NCD Alliance convened global health and development experts to call for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to be integrated into the post-2015 development agenda, following the opening day of the 66th World Health Assembly (WHA).

The Union has launched a pilot project in collaboration with Eli Lilly and Dimagi, aimed at strengthening the process of TB patient referral and tracking through mobile technology in the tribal district of Khunti in Jharkhand, India.

Participants in a TB-HIV workshop in Mozambique were advised by WHO that more lives can be saved by improving implementation in decentralised and integrated settings than by centralised and specialised HIV care and ART services.