Next Steps

Prevention

• Treatment to prevent TB in a single person aims to kill walled-up germs that are doing no damage right now, but could break out years from now and become active.
  
  
  • If you should be treated to prevent sickness, your doctor usually prescribes a daily dose of isoniazid (also called INH), an inexpensive TB medicine.
    
    
  • You will take INH for up to a year, with periodic checkups to make sure you are taking it as prescribed and that it is not causing undesirable side effects.
  
  
• Treatment also can stop the spread of TB in large populations.
  
  
  • Tuberculosis vaccine, known as bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) may prevent the spread of tuberculosis and tuberculous meningitis in children, but the vaccine does not necessarily protect against pulmonary tuberculosis.
    
    
  • Health officials generally recommend the vaccine in countries or communities where the rate of new infection is greater than 1% per year.