Tuberculosis control strategies to reach the 2035 global targets in China: the role of changing demographics and reactivation disease

BACKGROUND: In the last 20 years, China ramped up a DOTS (directly observed treatment, short-course)-based tuberculosis (TB) control program with 80% population coverage, achieving the 2015 Millennium Development Goal of a 50% reduction in TB prevalence and mortality. Recently, the World Health Organization developed the End TB Strategy, with an overall goal of a 90% reduction in TB incidence and a 95% reduction in TB deaths from 2015–2035. As the TB burden shifts to older individuals and China’s overall population ages, it is unclear if maintaining the current DOTS strategy will be sufficient for China to reach the global targets. METHODS: We developed an individual-based computational model of TB transmission, implementing realistic age demographics and fitting to country-level data of age-dependent prevalence over time. We explored the trajectory of TB burden if the DOTS strategy is maintained or if new interventions are introduced using currently available and soon-to-be-available tools. These interventions include increasing population coverage of DOTS, reducing time to treatment, increasing treatment success, and active case finding among elders > 65 years old. We also considered preventative therapy in latently infected elders, a strategy limited by resource constraints and the risk of adverse events. RESULTS: Maintenance of the DOTS strategy reduces TB incidence and mortality by 42% (95% credible interval, 27-59%) and 41% (5-64%), respectively, between 2015 and 2035. A combination of all feasible interventions nears the 2035 mortality target, reducing TB incidence and mortality by 59% (50-76%) and 83% (73-94%). Addition of preventative therapy for elders would enable China to nearly reach both the incidence and mortality targets, reducing incidence and mortality by 84% (78-93%) and 92% (86-98%). CONCLUSIONS: The current decline in incidence is driven by two factors: maintaining a low level of new infections in young individuals and the aging out of older latently infected individuals who contribute incidence due to reactivation disease. While further reducing the level of new infections has a modest effect on burden, interventions that limit reactivation have a greater impact on TB burden. Tools that make preventative therapy more feasible on a large scale and in elders will help China achieve the global targets. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12916-015-0341-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.