Despite intense efforts, tuberculosis (TB), an infectious human disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, remains a major burden on global health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report on Tuberculosis, in 2013 there were an estimated 8.6 million incident cases of TB and 1.4 million died from the disease. Furthermore, it is estimated that the latent form of the disease infects a third of the global population. In Mexico, TB still represents a public health issue, but its prevalence differs across the country. Chiapas is one of the leading states in TB morbidity and mortality. Socio-economic factors have been attributed to the prevalence of TB in Chiapas, and little work has been carried out to understand biological factors such as the human and pathogen genetic diversity.

Although Chiapas adopted the directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS) strategy in 1996, the state still has high incidence and mortality rates due to TB. Our research focuses in different areas of TB research: molecular and classical epidemiology and evaluation of innovative methods to diagnose TB.

We are currently carrying out the following projects:

(i) Determining "hot-spots" of TB transmission in key regions of Chiapas.

We have built a database of TB cases from 1996 to 2013 and using geographic information system (GIS), we have identified, graded and mapped municipalities belonging to the Highlands region of Chiapas with high TB incidence rates (see Spatial and temporal distribution of tuberculosis in the Highlands region of Chiapas, Mexico:preliminary results). We are interested to work in another region, the Soconusco area, which is an international border between Mexico and Guatemala. This study would aid TB local programs to design strategic prevention and control transmission of the disease.