Large African TB Study Reveals Powerful Strategy to Curb Disease

摘要

Powerful combinations of drugs can cure tuberculosis but only if people know they have the disease and stick rigorously to a lengthy course of treatment. An ambitious study involving 1 million people in Zambia and South Africa explored two strategies to increase TB testing and treatment in 24 locales, asking whether either could reduce the incidence of the disease on a communitywide level. The results, reported on 30 October at a TB meeting in Lille, France, found that one approach led to a 22% drop in TB over 3 years, whereas the other had no effect on prevalence of the disease.