(Circulation. 2000;101:e9038.)
© 2000 American Heart Association, Inc.
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Global Tuberculosis Threat Demands US Response
It took the United States 7 years and several billion dollars to overcome the resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) that occurred in the 1980s. Yet most people do not realize that the disease’s resurgence was the result of federal inactivity after Congress eliminated TB prevention funds in 1972.
Now that new cases of the disease are at an all-time low in the United States, infectious disease experts warn that the disease could resurface if the nation does not take decisive steps to identify and treat undetected TB cases. In its report, Ending Neglect: The Elimination of Tuberculosis in the United States, the Institute of Medicine proposes a multistep strategy to eliminate TB in the United States by the year 2035.
"Despite the falling number of cases in the United States, this country has entered a dangerous phase in which the disease has retreated to specific communities where it can lie dormant and resist detection," said Morton N. Swartz, MD, chairman of the Committee on the Elimination of Tuberculosis in the United States, during a telephone conference on the report. "Without decisive steps to identify and treat the undetected cases, the disease could come back with a vengeance and exact a heavy price. US policy-makers cannot afford to relax their vigilance. Current efforts at TB control will not be sufficient, and doing less could be disastrous."
The report recommends an aggressive approach to solving the problem, including the following:
- Improving screening for latent infections among high-risk groups
- Reorganizing TB control efforts to
. . . [Full Text of this Article] - Reorganizing TB control efforts to