Tuberculosis (TB) experts recently released new treatment recommendations for health care providers treating patients with drug susceptible TB. It has been thirteen years since new treatment guidance was released. Updated recommendations for drug resistant TB are also in the works.
The United States Preventive Service Task Force just released a new recommendation encouraging providers to screen all adults who are at increased risk of developing TB disease. Enhanced screening is especially important to work towards our goal to eliminate TB in Arizona. We average about 200 cases a year in Arizona. We will have achieved our TB elimination goal when we decrease our number of cases to less than six cases a year.
Our Tuberculosis Control Program provides technical assistance to county health departments and other agencies and health care providers on epidemiology, diagnosis, control, and prevention of the disease. The Program maintains registries to monitor the occurrence, distribution and trends of TB and latent TB infection morbidity, risk factors, and completion of therapy. The program also monitors TB drug-resistance patterns and the necessary investigation and follow-up of persons exposed to active TB cases.
