Link to article: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/2025/03/using-public-health-to-eliminate-tuberculosis
This is a profile about ZTB, and how it leverages both public health and clinical medicine to eliminate the disease. It was published in the March/April 2025 edition of Dome by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Introduction
As he gazes at the grant proposal on his office computer, Kunchok Dorjee is also seeing a path to better health for thousands of Tibetan children in India and Nepal who live in boarding schools and other congregate settings.
Since 2017, Dorjee, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has been working to curb the spread of tuberculosis (TB) among these vulnerable populations. He directs Zero TB in Kids, a tuberculosis elimination campaign that has reduced TB incidence by 87% in Tibetan refugee children by using a multipronged approach of community mobilization, screening, treatment and preventive therapy.
This public health initiative is aided by infectious diseases specialist Richard Chaisson and colleagues at Johns Hopkins, and is implemented on the ground by Delek Hospital in Dharamshala, India, and by in-country partners in Kathmandu, Nepal.
