We made a bibliographic search for Japanese and non-Japanese literature on tuberculosis control programs to study the current public health policies for tuberculosis control in Japan especially in regard to cost-effectiveness. Then, we compared the Japanese, strategies for tuberculosis control with those in other countries including the United States, and those recommended by World Health Organ...

Failure of tuberculosis control in developing countries is often blamed on ill-functioning health systems. Successful scale up of tuberculosis control therefore necessitates scale up of health systems. However, how to make the optimal use of available resources to meet the need is a parallel dilemma for many countries. In 1950, Japan faced the dilemma. Tuberculosis was extremely prevalent and w...

Tuberculosis remains a major global health problem, with 8.6 million estimated incident cases and 1.3 million estimated deaths in 2012.1 Cambodia ranks second among the 22 countries with a high tuberculosis burden. Since the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the DOTS (directly observed treatment, short-course) strategy in 1994,2 which is based on the passive detection of cases of smear-po...

Growing consensus indicates that progress in tuberculosis control in the low- and middle-income world will require not only investment in strengthening tuberculosis control programs, diagnostics, and treatment but also action on the social determinants of tuberculosis. However, practical ideas for action are scarcer than is notional support for this idea. We developed a framework based on the r...

BACKGROUND : Interferon-gamma (INF-γ) is an important cytokine in the immune response against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. activates macrophage to kill intracellular mycobacterium. AIM: The aim of this study determine difference plasma INF-γ level pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients compared a healthy control and factors associated with interferon-gamma level. METHODS: This case–control study....

background : despite recent technologic improvements in identifying mycobacterium tuberculosis, we are still facing problems in rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis. the objective of this study is to determine the diagnostic value of a new rapid screening test (patho-tb™) for diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. methods : between september 2006 to august 2007, 178 patients were enrolled in the study...

Host genetic factors are major determinants of susceptibility to tuberculosis, and an understanding of the molecular basis of this observation has major implications for the development of novel therapies and vaccines. Slc11a1 (formerly Nramp1), the first murine infection susceptibility locus identified, regulates early innate responses to intracellular pathogens. Variation in the human homolog...

In spite of being the pioneer-leader of research into epidemiology and prevention of tuberculosis among low-income countries, India has the highest population-based burden of tuberculosis among all nations. Children with latent tuberculosis are the pool from which adult pulmonary tuberculosis emerges many years later. In the absence of primary prevention of infection by BCG, sociologic/behavior...