NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, January 24, 2014

A high proportion — as many as three percent — of miners begin treatment for the contagious lung disease each year.

Tuberculosis spreads easily among miners due to the close quarters in which they work, and the epidemic has worsened along with the rise in HIV infections, according to the article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The clinical trial led by scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine offered thousands of South African miners a preventive drug therapy called isoniazid over the course of nine months.