Tuberculosis is a leading cause of ill-health and death in low and middle income countries. Tuberculosis control is essential for achieving the Millennium Development Goals relating to health by 2015. However, despite efforts made to expand tuberculosis control over the past decades, tuberculosis remains a serious global health problem. This book aims to assist the expansion of tuberculosis control by adding to the evidence on the cost-effectiveness of different tuberculosis control strategies. It presents research from five countries: Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, Peru and Ukraine. It examines the implementation of the World Health Organization recommended strategy, Directly Observed Treatment Strategy (dots). New technologies currently being developed to tackle drug resistance are also assessed. Emphasis throughout is placed on the importance of health systems and the costs for patients accessing treatment. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in economic aspects of tuberculosis control.

An analysis of the lessons learned from tuberculosis control in Shanghai.

Tuberculosis Control and Institutional Change in Shanghai, 1911–2011 is the first book on the most widespread and deadly infectious disease in China, both historically and today. Weaving together interviews with data from periodicals and local archives in Shanghai, Rachel Core examines the rise and fall of tuberculosis control in China from the 1950s to the 1990s. Under the socialist work unit system, the vast majority of people had guaranteed employment, a host of benefits tied to their workplace, and there was little mobility—factors that made the delivery of medical and public health services possible in both urban and rural areas. The dismantling of work units amid wider market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s led to the rise of temporary and casual employment and a huge migrant worker population, with little access to health care, creating new challenges in TB control. This study of Shanghai will provide valuable lessons for historians, social scientists, public health specialists, and many others working on public health infrastructure on both the national and global levels.