A limited TB intervention in remote Taiwan: observations 10 years later

A brief but comprehensive TB elimination program began in a remote region of Taiwan in 1997 involving five contiguous villages (n=2308).

An aggressive intervention included tuberculin skin testing and treatment of latent TB infection. Normal program data was collected and later analyzed forming the basis of an operational research study.

An initial 31% reduction in active TB cases (81 to 56 over 4 years) (p=0.033) was observed and persisted until the end of the 10-year follow-up period despite no further intervention. In the control population, no sustained reduction of TB was noted for the same period.

Although encouraging, a more robust study is needed to reasonably attribute the persistence of this significantly lower TB rate to this brief intensive intervention.