Chemotherapy is beyond any doubt the most effective tool to improve the epidemiologic situation in the community coupled with the individual benefit of rapid restoration of health.

BCG vaccination is capable of reducing the risk of unnecessary death or disability from tuberculosis in small children, but is not expected to greatly impact on the epidemiologic situation.

Preventive therapy could be an important tool in countries embarking on a tuberculosis elimination strategy but it is logistically difficult to implement, relatively inefficient, and may draw urgently required resources away from tuberculosis control programs in low-income countries.

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