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.



• The tuberculosis vaccine, known as bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) may prevent the spread of tuberculosis and tuberculous meningitis in children, but the vaccine does not necessarily protect against pulmonary tuberculosis. It can, however, result in a false-positive tuberculin skin test that in many cases can be differentiated by the use of the QuantiFERON-TB Gold test mentioned above.



• Health officials generally recommend the vaccine in countries or communities where the rate of new infection is greater than 1% per year. BCG is not generally recommended for use in the United States because there is a very low risk of tuberculosis infection. It may be considered for very select patients at high risk for tuberculosis and who meet special criteria.