Two Ways to Tackle Tuberculosis(s more recent and somewhat more involved...),Health

Those countries include Vietnam, the Philippines and China, Painter said.

In many cases, infection does not mean active disease, since the TB bacteria can lie dormant for years, he explained. "Ten percent of those who are infected will develop active TB in their lifetimes," Painter said.

So, follow-up exams often are required when an immigrant or refugee enters the United States. "Overseas screening can identify a large number of people at high risk for tuberculosis," said Yecai Liu, a CDC medical statistician who contributed to the report. "To maximize the benefit of the overseas program depends on local control programs. We have an active outreach policy, with a home visit and telephone calls recommended."

Treatment follows detection, and the other journal report describes promising results of a new drug tested in a controlled trial of individuals with a virulent form of the disease, called multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

This is not the most dangerous form of TB. That title is held by a strain called extensively drug-resistant TB. There was an international public health scare in 2007 when an Atlanta lawyer was believed to have flown overseas for a European honeymoon with the extensively drug-resistant version of the disease, a fear that turned out to be unfounded.

But the multidrug-resistant form is deadly enough so that a new drug to fight it would be welcome.

The drug, designated TMC207, was discovered at the Belgian research laboratory of Tibotec, a subsidiary of the American drug company Johnson & Johnson. It has a unique strategy for attacking the tuberculosis bacterium, said Dr. David F. McNeeley, global medical leader for clinical development at Tibotec.

"All existing medications have different ways of attacking," McN
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