Wider use of antibiotics could stem the spread of TB, say experts
Failure to implement TB prevention strategies is one of the key reasons we still have not made enough progress against tuberculosis
A short course of antibiotics for people with latent tuberculosis could prove to be the most effective way of stopping the spread of the disease, since there is currently no effective vaccine, says a report published by the Lancet on Thursday. TB is the world’s biggest infectious killer, felling 1.6-million people in 2017. In SA, its spread has been fuelled by HIV, which makes people more vulnerable to infection. SA had the world’s second highest TB infection rate in 2017, with about 567 cases per 100,000 population. About 132,000 people were newly infected, and 78,000 people died from TB in SA, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). “Our failure to implement TB prevention strategies is one of the key reasons we still have not made enough progress against TB,” said Gavin Churchyard, CEO of the Aurum Institute in Johannesburg, and one of the authors of the report released by the Lancet Commission on TB. “Unless we quickly tackle the seedbed of the epidemic — latent TB infe...
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