The goal of the visit is to provide Uzbekistan’s health-care professionals with U.S. methods for maintaining communication with tuberculosis-affected families and providing social-support services.

Jennifer Lang, executive director of Colleagues International, said her group wrote a proposal in January after being invited by the U.S. State Department to bid on a nearly $50,000 grant that would allow the Uzbekistani group’s visit.

Through a Russian interpreter, Rova Allayorova, a chief nurse at a regional tuberculosis hospital in Uzbekistan, said that the team had already discovered differences in the way health-care providers in United States control and treat the contagious disease. She said the team hopes to learn about newer drugs and new technology for treatment.

Lang said the 10 Uzbekistanis will be visiting Kalamazoo through Friday. Their visit includes meetings with doctors and nurses from Borgess and Bronson hospitals and Kalamazoo County Health and Human Services.

Richard Van Enk, Bronson Methodist Hospital’s director of infection control and epidemiology, said TB is one of the most common infections in the world.

``It’s really a disease that depends a lot on the public-health system and the patient’s access to that system,’’ he said. ``That’s why TB tends to be a problem in developing countries.’’

Van Enk said Uzbekistani health professionals may not have as much access to medications as U.S. doctors because of delivery complications.

The Uzbekistani group met with Lynne D. Norman, a Kalamazoo County nurse epidemiologist. ``It really made me realize how similar (health professionals) are,’’ she said. ``We’re using ... many of the same strategies to treat people.’’

The Uzbekistani group also planned to meet in Lansing with officials from the TB control program of the Michigan Department of Community Health and learn about the implementation and maintenance of their statewide TB registry.

They expected to learn how the state and the Michigan Advisory Committee for Elimination of Tuberculosis maintain Web sites aimed at providing current resources and information about tuberculosis.