American journal of epidemiology | 2019
70 years of TB Prevention: Efficacy, Effectiveness, Toxicity, Durability and Duration.
Abstract
Tuberculosis (TB) has been a leading infectious cause of death worldwide for much of human history with 1.6 million deaths estimated in 2017. The Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has played an important role in understanding and responding to TB, and has made particularly substantial contributions to prevention of TB with chemoprophylaxis. TB preventive therapy is highly efficacious in the prevention of TB disease, yet remains underutilized by TB programs worldwide despite strong evidence to support its use in high-risk groups including people living with HIV and household contacts, including those under 5 years of age. We review the evidence for TB preventive therapy and discuss the future of TB prevention.