ABSTRACT
Tuberculosis remains an enormous burden due to its poor control in Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe, and because of the high rates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and HIV-1 coinfection in some African countries (1). In the United States, after decades of declining rates of infection, there was a resurgence of tuberculosis in the mid-1980s. The AIDS epidemic, together with rising immigration and urban crowding, and the increase in drug resistant M. tuberculosis strains, has resulted in making tuberculosis a global problem and a public health priority.
