Please note: This publication was rescinded on 22 February 2000
This new publication, which has been undertaken jointly by the Tuberculosis Subcommittee of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, has considerably extended 'Treatment of tuberculosis' to review the epidemiology, clinical presentation and diagnosis of tuberculosis, as well as bringing treatment up to date.
Synopsis
Tuberculosis in Australia and New Zealand in the 1990s is the successor to the Commonwealth Department of Health' s Treatment of tuberculosis: recommendations of the National Tuberculosis Advisory Council. The booklet which began life in 1969 as five typewritten pages was rapidly expanded into the more comprehensive 1972 edition, and revised four more times over the next decade in response to the continuing demand for guidance in the treatment of tuberculosis, and the rapid advances in chemotherapy.
This new publication, which has been undertaken jointly by the Tuberculosis Subcommittee of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, has considerably extended 'Treatment of tuberculosis' to review the epidemiology, clinical presentation and diagnosis of tuberculosis, as well as bringing treatment up to date.
Despite an overall decline in incidence, tuberculosis remains a significant problem among the aged, Aborigines, Maoris, and immigrants from countries with a high incidence of tuberculosis. The pool of tuberculosis infection in Australia is again growing, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic has created the potential for a resurgence of the disease. Not withstanding these pockets of increased risk of infection however, the overall incidence of tuberculosis in the current Australian and New Zealand populations has now fallen to such low levels that the long-term aim of control, even elimination, of tuberculosis is potentially realisable over the next few decades. At this point it is appropriate to remind the reader that long-term control of tuberculosis, in the public health sense, can be regarded as having been achieved when the current WHO goals are satisfied.
This publication aims to provide an up-to-date guide to most aspects of tuberculosis in Australia and New Zealand.
It is intended to be of value to health workers not only in these two countries, but throughout the South-West Pacific, and the authors would draw to the attention of this latter group the review article by Dr Wallace Fox entitled Tuberculosis case-finding and treatment programmes in the developing countries' recently published in the British Medical Bulletin (reference 18).
