[Response capacity and challenges of the Cuban health system against communicable diseasesCapacidade de resposta e desafios do sistema de saúde cubano contra doenças transmissíveis].

This article presents distinctive and essential features in the transformations of the Cuban health system that have allowed the eradication and reduction of the incidence rates of some communicable diseases at levels lower than 0.1 per 100 000 inhabitants. The results obtained are a consequence of the importance given to the prevention and control, as well as to the risks and potential damages, of these diseases.

Management of latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection: WHO guidelines for low tuberculosis burden countries.

Latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) is characterised by the presence of immune responses to previously acquired Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection without clinical evidence of active tuberculosis (TB). Here we report evidence-based guidelines from the World Health Organization for a public health approach to the management of LTBI in high risk individuals in countries with high or middle upper income and TB incidence of <100 per 100 000 per year. The guidelines strongly recommend systematic testing and treatment of LTBI in people living with HIV, adult and child contacts of pulmonary TB cases, patients initiating anti-tumour necrosis factor treatment, patients receiving dialysis, patients preparing for organ or haematological transplantation, and patients with silicosis.

[Tuberculosis risk assessment in the staff of the National University Pneumologic Hospital of Havana].

Introduction: tuberculosis is traditionally considered as a professional disease in health care workers.

Objective: to evaluate the individual and collective tuberculosis infection risk by areas or departments in the National University Pneumologiic Hospital of Havana, Cuba.

Methods: the individual risk was assessed during 2008-2009 by means of a survey administered to the staff that includes personal data, labor location and exposition to M.

[Mortality from tuberculosis in Cuba. 1902-1997].

The behavior of mortality from tuberculosis in Cuba from 1902 to 1997 was described. During the xx century, tuberculosis has been studied in various stages, but no papers reflecting its behavior in a comprehensive way have been published so far. To this end, the notifications of tuberculosis and the populations by sex, age and provinces available since 1902 in the archives of the National Statistics Division of the Ministry of Public Health were taken into consideration.

[Tuberculin reactivity among ninth-grade schoolchildren in the city of Havana, Cuba].

Objective: To determine the proportion of 14-year-old schoolchildren in the city of Havana, Cuba, with a positive tuberculin skin test, as an indicator of the prevalence of tuberculosis infection among them.

Methods: Using single-stage cluster sampling, 1 936 Mantoux (tuberculin) tests were carried out with ninth-grade students (cohort born in 1985) during the 1999- 2000 school year in 20 basic high schools randomly selected in Havana. The tests were performed according to the standard technique recommended by the World Health Organization, and they were read after 72 hours.

[Tuberculosis in Havana City, 1995-1999].

Objective: Tuberculosis is a worldwide health problem getting a prioritized attention by the Cuban National Health System. To describe the main indicators of the Cuban Tuberculosis Control Program.

Methods: Based on surveillance data from the Provincial Center of Hygiene and Epidemiology, the health care network and strategies of the tuberculosis control program were reviewed; incidence rates, case finding indicators, diagnosis and case management were described.