El problema de la tuberculosis en las Américas

Abstract

There are 85,000,000 infected persons and 1,250,000 active cases of tuberculosis in Latin America. In the United States there are about 30 million infected persons, and each year the disease is reactivated in thousands of persons. At present the estimated mortality rate is 28 per 100,000 population in South America, 20 in Middle America as opposed to 4 in North America; the morbidity rate is 118, 46 and 24 respectively in each of the above mentioned regions

Despite the fact that efficient methods of treating tuberculosis are available, it continues to be one of the major health problems in the Americas. Although the objective has always been to eliminate the disease as quickly as possible, it has frequently been first necessary to overcome reluctance to change outdated ideas and traditional approaches which prevent appropriate care being given to persons suffering from the disease

To accelerate tuberculosis control the author advocates greater resources for intesifying preventive and diagnostic measures, and especially ambulatory treatment, the cost of which is from 10 to 20 times less than that of hospital treatment. He also suggests that static hospital services be used for diagnosis and treatment purposes instead of mobile units, since, in the interval between their visits, the reservoir of infection continues to produce cases uninterruptedly

The anticipated results of a tuberculosis ...(AU)