‘I wasn’t sure I’d make it’: how a new mother’s brush with TB could mean better treatment for pregnant women

Fewer that 1.5% of drugs trials between 1960 and 2013 included expectant women. Now, campaigners and doctors are aiming to change that

When she was pregnant with her second child, Busisiwe Beko was living with HIV, but that didn't worry her. She had been taking antiretrovirals for years and as an experienced Aids activist in South Africa she knew that as long as she continued to take her pills every day, her second baby would be born free of infection, just like her first.

But another illness was lurking in Beko's lungs: tuberculosis (TB) had been hiding behind the common signs of pregnancy. The illness turned her pregnancy into a nightmare.