Vaccines Not Enough to Stop Spread of TB, Health Officials Say

KIGALI — Rwanda’s Ministry of Health last month formally banned the traditional “sharing of straws” that locals here employ to drink beer. The age-old tradition is suspected in the spread of tuberculosis, or TB. The sharing of the straw spreads the tubercle bacilli-laden saliva into the beer, infecting others, who subsequently sip from the same container, the MOH in Rwanda said. The MOH has also expressed a desire to discourage hand-shaking for greeting, to ban the conventional cloth handkerchief – which retains the bacteria-laden nasal mucus — in favor of the disposable paper tissues, and has promoted hand washing as a way to disinfect oneself, and stop the spread of TB.Just a week after the Rwandan developments, Thami Mseleku, the director general of the South African Department of Health told the 38th Union World Conferences on Lung Health in Cape Town, South Africa, that