The Utility of Space-Time Surveillance for Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) has reemerged as a global health epidemic in recent years. Although several researchers have examined the use of space-time surveillance to detect TB clusters, they have not used genetic information to verify that detected clusters are due to person-to-person transmission. Using genetic fingerprinting data for TB cases, we sought to determine whether detected clusters were due to recent transmission.

Objective

This paper describes the utility of prospective spacetime surveillance to detect genetic clusters of TB due to person-to-person spread.