Tuberculosis is a dangerous infectious disease. The strategies used by wealthy countries to wipe it out within their borders in the 1950s holds lessons for the world.
between 1800 and 2000. It attacks the human body more slowly than viral diseases like flu or COVID-19, but exacts a great toll. Untreated TB is a death sentence for 80 percent of those who fall ill.
How did public health agencies, municipalities and private partners do it? Aided by a flurry of diagnostic and treatment innovations in the early to mid-20th century, they stopped TB using a community-based strategy calledFirst they searched for contacts of known patients. In communities where TB was rampant, they went house-by-house looking for people who had the disease and were transmitting it to others.
The results were stunning:"search, treat and prevent" helped the U.S. and other wealthy countries to stop TB in its tracks. A disease which had been a plague on mankind since the beginning of the modern era was brought to heel in the period from the 1950s to the 1970s — fewer than 20 years. The announcement last Friday of a point-of-care test that can accurately diagnose coronavirus in as little as five minutes is a game-changer. With such technology we can identify hot spots whose residents need to practice physical distancing, provide community-based care to those not sick enough to be in hospitals, and — when preventive medicines, new treatments and vaccines become available — deliver these tools to those who could benefit most.
The organization and funding of these teams would vary in different national and local settings. In the U.S. during the 1960s and '70s community-based TB interventions were overseen by municipal public health authorities with funding from federal, state and private sources.has pointed out, employ thousands of people, helping to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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