The “International Journal of Infectious Diseases” published a study on a new approach to monitoring the effectiveness of TB treatment entitled “Association of baseline white blood cell counts with tuberculosis treatment outcome: a prospective multicentered cohort study”.

The study comes as part of a series of joint research conducted in laboratories affiliated to “GABRIEL Network” of “Mérieux Foundation” between Lebanon, France, Georgia, Bangladesh, Madagascar and Paraguay.

In part, the published study was based on the results of research conducted by the graduate Rim Bayaa of the Faculties of Science and Public Health at the Lebanese University, in the Laboratory of Microbiology of Health and Environment of the Doctoral School of Science and Technology (DSST) in partnership with “Mérieux Foundation” and the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP) of the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health through the two TB centers in Tripoli and Akkar.

The study concluded that white blood cells and lymphocyte levels are simple biomarkers that can be used to monitor the effectiveness of TB treatment.

It is reported that Rim Bayaa is pursuing her 3rd year PhD in bacterial diseases under joint supervision between the Laboratory of Microbiology of Health and Environment of the DSST and the “Emerging Pathogens Laboratory” of Claude Bernard University Lyon 1, France.

The dissertation of Rim is supervised by Dr. Mounzir Hamza and Dr. Bashar Ismail from the Lebanese University, and Dr. Jonathan Hoffmann and Dr. Florence Adair from Claude Bernard University Lyon 1.