Abstract:
Dear Editor, Current TB care and prevention policies have resulted in a slow (,2%) annual decline in disease incidence,1 meaning we are not on track to reach the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.2 Historically, mass chest radiography (CXR) screening programmes were widely used, in part because of their sensitivity for pulmonary TB.3 However, following a 1974 WHO Expert Committee report, mass CXR screening was mostly abandoned in the past half-century. It was concluded that mass CXR screening had ‘‘no significant effect on the occurrence of subsequent smearpositive cases’’ and, given the resource requirements, was not a cost-effective tool to interrupt transmission.4 One of the key sources cited in support of this viewpoint are the results from a carefully conducted long-term study on mass CXR screening and TB epidemiology in the district of Kol´ın, Czechoslovakia, from 1960 to 1972.5