document: Drug abusers who are infected with the AIDS virus and tuberculosis bacteria should be treated with medicine to prevent full-blown TB , says a study published today . Doctors have noticed a growing prevalence of tuberculosis in recent years among people at high risk of AIDS , especially drug addicts . In the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine , the TB usually resulted from activation of lingering tuberculosis infections , not new exposures to the bacteria , in people who also are infected with the AIDS virus . The doctors warned that besides being at risk of getting tuberculosis themselves , AIDS-infected addicts who carry the TB bacteria also may pass the germs to people they live with , to health care workers and other people . `` The aggressive identification and treatment of HIV-infected intravenous drug users with latent tuberculous infection is therefore of both clinical and public health importance , '' wrote Dr. Peter A. Selwyn of Montefiore Medical Center in New York . People may carry either the AIDS virus or tuberculosis bacteria for many years without getting sick . While most people with the AIDS virus eventually go on to get acquired immune deficiency syndrome , people who carry the tuberculosis bacteria ordinarily have only about a 10 percent life-long risk of getting TB . HIV _ the AIDS viurus _ weakens the body 's defenses against disease . The study suggests that it lowers resistance to the tuberculosis bacteria , putting people at much higher risk of TB . The study was conducted on 520 drug users who were in a methadone program . When the study began , 42 percent already were infected with HIV . Twenty-three percent of those with HIV also carried TB bacteria as did 20 percent of those who were free of the AIDS virus . During almost two years of followup , active tuberculosis developed in eight of the AIDS-infected people , but in none of those who did not have HIV . Seven of the eight TB cases occurred in people who were already infected with tuberculosis bacteria before the study began . The doctors noted that 13 people who carried HIV and TB bacteria were treated with the drug isoniazid , and none of them went on to get active tuberculosis . However , seven of 36 people with both infections who did not take the medicine got TB . The doctors said that the drug is now administered along with daily methadone doses at the clinic where the study was conducted .
extractive_keyphrases: aids virus drug abusers tuberculosis bacteria medicine drug addicts tuberculosis infections