Prevalence of tuberculosis (TB), persistently having a downward trend until the beginning of 1980s in developed countries, re-surged with the appearance of AIDS, decrease of funding for health due to economical reasons in governmental policies, unequal distribution of the general capital, increase in dimensions of alcoholism, homelessness and illicit drug use. At the end of 1990s, these countries mainly the USA, one by one, declared to the world that they had lost the war against TB and immediate precautions should be taken. Just after that, they accepted Directly Observed Therapy (DOT), having an already demonstrated efficacy against TB with studies, which means giving the drugs by hand twice or thrice weekly and directly observing patients’ swallowing as the standard treatment, even getting further as an obligation by laws.
For our country, it is known by everybody that the war against TB was already lost and the problem of drug resistance reached enormous dimensions. Even according to optimistic statements in the official numbers, it is a fact that we are in a 2 fold worse situation in average than the worst situation of those countries already declaring that they had lost the war against TB. Starting off here, after the immediate completion of necessary organisation, DOT application, in contrary to the general prejudice indeed being cheaper and decreasing relapse and multi-drug resistance rates, seems the only solution to the problem as the standard and obligatory application by laws in our country too.
In our review, considering the previous literature, we attempted to discuss DOT applications and results in the world and things to be done for this aspect in our country.
Key words: Directly observed therapy, tuberculosis, treatment compliance
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