Objective To review policies on management of latent tuberculosis infection in countries with low and high burdens of tuberculosis. Methods We divided countries reporting data to the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Programme into low and high tuberculosis burden, based on WHO criteria. We identified national policy documents on management of latent tuberculosis through onl...

Policies regarding the use of the Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine for tuberculosis vary greatly throughout the international community. In several countries, consideration of discontinuing universal vaccination programs is currently under way. The arguments against mass vaccination are that the effectiveness of BCG in preventing tuberculosis is uncertain and that BCG vaccination can inter...

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a threat to the health of people worldwide. Infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis can result in active TB or, more commonly, latent infection. Latently infected persons, of which there are estimated to be approximately 2 billion in the world, represent an enormous reservoir of potential reactivation TB, which can spread to other people. The immunology of TB is comp...

It is estimated that one third of the world's population have latent tuberculosis infection and that this is a significant reservoir for future tuberculosis cases. Most cases occur within two years following initial infection. The identification of individuals with latent tuberculosis infection is difficult due to the lack of an ideal diagnostic assay and incomplete understanding of latent infe...

During tuberculosis, macrophages are critical for both pathogen survival and host immune activation. Since expression of particular cell surface markers reflects cell function, we used flow cytometry to measure the abundance of surface markers associated with polarity, lipid uptake, or pattern recognition on macrophages found in induced sputum. Nine macrophage surface markers were examined from...

Tuberculosis is a common and in many cases lethal infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections in humans result in an asymptomatic, latent infection and about one in ten latent infections eventually progresses to active disease. The mortality r...

BACKGROUND The foreign-born population bears a disproportionate health burden from tuberculosis, with a rate of active tuberculosis 20 times that of the non-Aboriginal Canadian-born population, and could therefore benefit from tuberculosis screening programs. We reviewed evidence to determine the burden of tuberculosis in immigrant populations, to assess the effectiveness of screening and treat...

One of the recommended strategies for preventing tuberculosis is to screen high-risk populations with respect to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) infection. The aim of the present study was to investigate latent infection and active tuberculosis in people with close household contact. It was a cross-sectional descriptive, analytical study with the sample size of 668 people from homes with one in...

it is assumed that about 10% of individuals infected with mycobacterium tuberculosis develop tuberculosis. the rate of tuberculosis in solid organ transplant recipients has been estimated to be 50-fold higher than in the general population. candidates for solid organ transplantation are routinely screened for latent tuberculosis infection (ltbi). in this study we aimed to compare tuberculin ski...