Report calls for aggressive campaign against TB

From Medical Producer Saundra Young

May 4, 2000
Web posted at: 1:20 p.m. EDT (1720 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A report released Thursday urges U.S. policy makers to intensify the fight against tuberculosis by treating latent infections and strengthening public health services.

The report, "Ending Neglect: The Elimination of Tuberculosis in the United States," was prepared by the Institute of Medicine. It calls for screening programs to target high-risk U.S. communities and rigorous screening of visa applicants entering the United States from countries where the disease is widespread.

The number of tuberculosis cases has dropped in the U.S. recent years, but swift action is still needed because a global epidemic remains a potential source of new infections, the report said. Forty percent of new tuberculosis cases in the U.S. are among immigrants.

"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, chairman of the committee that wrote the report and chief of James Jackson Firm of Medical Service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

"Without decisive steps to identify and treat the undetected cases, the disease could come back with a vengeance and exact a heavy price," Swartz said.

Medical advances led to a drop in the number of U.S. TB cases during the 1960s. In 1972, Congress eliminated funding dedicated to fighting the disease. In subsequent years, many public-health efforts designed to prevent tuberculosis collapsed, infection rates rose and deadly drug-resistant strains of the disease emerged.

The report recommends: