March 24, 2000, Friday
SECTION: A, Pg. 24, Editorial
HEADLINE: Editorial
TB requires renewed vigilance (Begin)
This shrinking world provides an ideal culture for infectious diseases to travel across
borders. One recurring health threat has been tuberculosis. This airborne bacterium
appeared contained in the United States in the 1970s, but tuberculosis cases started going
up again around 1984. Fighting tuberculosis is more complicated because more people travel
about, enabling the spread of tuberculosis from under-treated countries to other parts of
the globe. In 1998, 57 million Americans traveled outside the United States for recreation
and business reasons, many to areas with relatively high TB infection rates such as
Southeast Asia, Latin America, Haiti and the Philippines. A worldwide strategy is a must
in controlling this dangerous disease.
Last year Congress authorized about $ 30 million for TB treatment in foreign nations.
This year, Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Connie Morella, R-Md., plan to introduce a bill
today -- World Tuberculosis Day -- requesting an increase for international TB control to
$ 100 million. That would allow medical workers in poor countries with high TB rates to
extend treatment to more infected people. The money will be used to implement an effective
treatment strategy called "directly observed therapy." This program helps ensure
that infected patients take their medicine until they are completely free of TB bacteria.
This approach has been used effectively in New Jersey to reduce TB cases over the past
two years from 8.9 per 100,000 people to 7 per 100,000. In 1997, there were 718 active TB
cases and 571 cases last year. Yet the disease has not been wiped out. A suspected case at
Brick Memorial High School has resulted in a number of students ungoing TB tests this
week.
Resistant TB strains arise when people fail to completely eliminate the TB in their
system. This more virulent strain of TB is harder to control. According to the World
Health Organization, two million develop tuberculosis each year and nearly 500,000 people
die from it.
U.S. support was crucial in eradicating smallpox worldwide, and its backing is helping
to eliminate polio. With the same commitment, TB can be eliminated as an international
health threat. Congress and President Clinton ought to support this relatively modest down
payment on eradicating TB.