At the end of another decade of our fluctuating relationship with tuberculosis, it is not clear whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic. The raw statistics are bad: an estimated 30 million people have died of tuberculosis in the past 10 years.1 The WHO has rightfully declared this to be a global health emergency. Almost in the same breath, it was announced that a solution to this global disaster had been discovered, the widespread implementation of directly observed therapy short-course (DOTS), a set of measures (essentially 6 months of intermittent supervised therapy) that have existed for over 2 decades.