$1.3 Million Grant for Texas to Participate in Tuberculosis Study

The Texas State Health Department has been awarded a $1.3 million grant to participate in a nationwide study of how to prevent and treat tuberculosis. The money from the CDC will be used over a 10-year period.

Jeff Taylor of the Health Department's Tuberculosis Elimination Division said that the agency hopes to determine what studies need to be done to better understand how TB is transmitted in the United States and Canada.

According to the Texas Department of Infectious Disease, TB is the largest killer of young people and adults, with 8,000 deaths worldwide each day. The department said there were 1,643 new cases of TB in Texas last year, up from 1,506 new cases in 2000. The TB rate along the US-Mexico border is slightly higher than other parts of Texas because of its proximity to Mexico. "It's adjacent to a country that has a high rate of TB in general," Taylor said.

The Texas Department of Health and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth will be in charge of the Texas research. The two agencies will decide what part of the state will be used for research.

Although there is no statewide requirement that all Texans be tested for TB, testing already is a practice for prison or jail inmates, people using homeless shelters, and recently arrived immigrants. It is important to stop transmission early. "The best way to prevent TB is to find acute cases early and see that they get treated appropriately," Taylor said. "We want to cut down the period of time that they are infectious."

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