Expanding TB infection treatment to private providers will be the key to reaching TB elimination globally, nationally and locally.
– Pete Dupree, MPH, current president of NTCA and TB Program Manager for Colorado
The National Society of Tuberculosis Clinicians (NSTC), a section of the National Tuberculosis Controllers Association (NTCA) released a new resource:
Testing and Treatment of Latent Tuberculosis Infection in the United States: Clinical Recommendations. A national group of TB experts developed these patient-centered and practical state-of-the-art recommendations as a companion reference to support healthcare providers in implementing the 2020 latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) treatment recommendations, “Guidelines for the Treatment of Latent Tuberculosis Infection: Recommendations from the National Tuberculosis Controllers Association and CDC.”
Dr. Burgos explains the project’s scope, “Our group strove to explain how to put the clinical advances of these guidelines into practice in the broader context of comprehensive patient care for LTBI—from screening and testing, to deciding whether and how to treat, and through to treatment completion. Further, we wanted to take a patient-centered approach and to present current thinking among TB clinicians on clinically complicated situations, such as pregnancy, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, liver disease, and organ transplantation.”
The Clinical Recommendations are written for healthcare providers in both the public and private sectors, both essential in the effort to eliminate TB disease. Dr. Crane emphasizes the importance of engaging private providers in the treatment of LTBI, “TB elimination cannot be accomplished by public health efforts alone; we need to partner with our private provider colleagues as they care for those with TB infection.”
Pete Dupree, MPH, current president of NTCA and the TB Program Manager for Colorado, gives the state TB programmatic perspective, “As a state TB Program Manager and TB Controller, I know the paramount importance of scaling-up screening, testing, and treatment for TB infection. Expanding TB infection treatment to private providers will be the key to reaching TB elimination globally, nationally and locally.”
