Prevention the best medicine for TB

In the Thibela TB study, one of the largest of its kind, almost 40,000 gold miners in South Africa received a nine-month course of isoniazid, a standard first-line TB drug. None of the miners was actually suffering from TB, but the high prevalence of both HIV and silicosis in South African mines makes miners extremely vulnerable to the disease.

Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) is usually given to people living with HIV to reduce their risk of developing TB, but the Thibela study is testing the theory that treating an entire community with the drug could have a significant impact on TB rates for a period of about 10 years.

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