I congratulate Dr Marrero and colleagues on the excellent paper published recently in Thorax about their experience with tuberculosis in Cuba from 1962 to 19971and consider that many developing countries, together with some developed countries like ours, should imitate their methods and their political commitment to a national tuberculosis programme. However, I wish to raise some questions and to comment on some points.

I was pleasantly surprised at the considerable improvement in the case finding from 1993 onwards. From 1983 to 1993 the number of new cases …