ABSTRACT
I. Introduction Since the passage of the 1991 World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution declaring tuberculosis (TB) as a global public health emergency, the progress in global TB control has been steady (1). In 1994, the internationally recommended TB control strategy, later named DOTS, was launched (2). The DOTS framework was subsequently expanded in 2002 to better address the prevailing constraints to global TB control (3). On World TB Day, March 24, 2006, WHO launched a comprehensive Stop TB Strategy, developed with the engagement of a range of stakeholders and endorsed by the Stop TB Partnership as well as the WHA (4,5). The Stop TB Strategy is built on the foundation of DOTS and underpins the Global Plan to Stop TB, 2006 to 2015 (6,7). Since its launch, the strategy has been adopted and implemented widely by countries including all with a high burden of TB. By the end of 2007, nearly 40 million patients had been treated under the DOTS approach.Where DOTS had been provided, treatment success has steadily increased from 77% in 1994 to 85% in 2006. TB detection under DOTS increased from an estimated 11% in 1995 to an estimated 63% in 2007. However, in the past two years, the earlier acceleration has come to an end and the case detection rate is stagnating (8).
