Stop using old weapons to fight the war against TB

This year, World TB Day saw posters in health clinics, on billboards, and in newspapers trumpeting the success of the supervised drug regimen Directly Observed Therapy, Short Course (DOTS) launched 10 years ago. They advertised encouraging statistics, such as that DOTS has a cure rate of 83%.1 But how long will this strategy-which deploys outdated drugs and diagnostic tests-work against the new multi-drug resistant superstrains or those who have both tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS?

The same week saw two contradictory press releases. The first, issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), claimed it was “gaining ground” against tuberculosis, and the second, released by the aid agency Médecins …