Two of the genes identified in our 5‐gene diagnostic signature are important entities in the IFN‐γ signalling cascade (STAT1 and WARS), which has been broadly implicated in the responses to enteric fever, TB (Berry et al, 2010a), dengue (De La Cruz Hernandez et al, 2014) and P. falciparum (Miller et al, 2014) infection. Here, STAT1 is linked to tuberculosis.