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Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by strains of bacteria known as mycobacteria. The disease most commonly affects the lungs and can be fatal if not treated. However, most infected individuals show no disease symptoms. One third of the worlds population is thought to have been infected with TB.

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Tuberculosis

Review tuberculosis: a disease without boundaries.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) that usually affects the lungs leading to severe coughing, fever, and chest pains. Although current research in the past four years has provided valuable insight into TB transmission, diagnosis, and treatment, much remains to be discovered to effectively decrease the incidence of and eventually eradicate TB. The disease still puts a strain on public health, being only second to HIV/AIDS in causing high mortality rates. This review will highlight the history of TB as well as provide an overview of the current literature on epidemiology, pathogenesis and the immune response, treatment, and control of TB. In this race to combat a disease that knows no boundaries, it is necessary to have a conceptual and clear understanding of TB overall with the hope of providing better treatment through novel and collaborative research and public health efforts.

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TB Epidemiologic Studies Consortium

The TB Epidemiologic Studies Consortium (TBESC) was established to strengthen, focus, and coordinate tuberculosis (TB) programmatic research. Since 2001, CDC has funded TBESC external partners to conduct epidemiologic and operational research to find better approaches to TB control and prevention.

TB Trials Consortium

The TB Trials Consortium (TBTC) is a collaboration of North American and international clinical investigators whose mission is to conduct programmatically relevant research concerning the diagnosis, clinical management, and prevention of TB infection and disease.

Behavioral and Social Science Research

Behavioral and social science research has the potential to make a tremendous impact on TB elimination efforts. This research is needed to 1) understand how behaviors of both patients and providers affect TB-related care seeking, diagnosis, treatment success, and prevention; and 2) understand how other social, cultural, and environmental influences affect health seeking and treatment outcomes related to TB.

Epidemiologic and Economic Modeling

Modeling epidemics and economics of disease provide useful information on how to prevent the greatest amount of disease with existing resources. In 2014, CDC funded a 5-year cooperative agreement, the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) Epidemiologic and Economic Modeling Agreement (NEEMA) , to support modeling activities to inform and, ultimately, improve the effectiveness of public health programs and activities supported by NCHHSTP.

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Mycobacterium tuberculosis

In this infographic, the genetics, phylogeny, physiology, and pathogenesis mechanisms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are shown. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the etiological agent of tuberculosis (TB), the leading cause of death due to a single infectious agent, claiming 1.7 million lives in 2016. Of the deaths attributable to TB in 2016, 22% occurred in people coinfected with HIV, and close to 5% of the 10.4 million incident cases of this disease were resistant to at least two of the first-line TB drugs. In this infographic, we describe the fundamental features of the genetics, phylogeny, and physiology of this member of the phylum Actinobacteria, which is associated increasingly with drug resistance mediated by mutations and rearrangements in its single, circular chromosome. We also highlight the key pathogenesis mechanisms employed by this slow-growing, facultative intracellular bacterium, which include avoidance of host cell clearance by arrest of the normal macrophage maturation process.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Tuberculosis Research Paper

Type of paper: Research Paper

Topic: Treatment , Health , Control , Viruses , Medicine , Vaccination , Disease , Development

Published: 03/26/2020

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Description of the communicable disease (causes, symptoms, mode of transmission, complications, treatment) and the demographic of interest (mortality, morbidity, incidence, and prevalence) Tumberculosis (TB) is a communicable chronic granulomatous disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It primarily affects lungs; it may affect any organ or tissue of the body. Typically, the centres of tubercular granulomas undergo caseous necrosis. It is “spread through inhaling tiny droplets from the coughs or sneezes of an infected person”. Typically, its symptoms include; persistent cough for more than three weeks, in which the phlegm maybe bloody; weight loss; night sweats; high temperature; tiredness and fatigue; and loss of appetite. Primary Tuberculosis is the form of disease that develops in a previously unexposed, and therefore unsensitised, person. Elderly and profoundly immunocompromised person may lose their sensitivity to the tubercle bacillus and so may develop primary tuberculosis. Secondary Tuberculosis, or reactivation tuberculosis, is a disease that arises in a previously sensitized host. Primary form of the disease may cause erosion of blood vessels may result in hemoptysis. The infection may spread by direct expansion, by dissemination through airways and lymphatic channels. Miliary pulmonary disease occurs when bacteria drain through lymphatics, and finally to right side of the heart. In serious conditions pleural cavity may get involved resulting in pleural effusion, tuberculous empyema or obliterative fibrous pleuritis. It may also lead to endobronchial, endotracheal, and laryngeal tuberculosis. Systemic military tuberculosis may cause infection in the liver, bone marrow, spleen, adrenals, meninges, kidneys, fallopian tubes, and epididymis. Isolated-organ tuberculosis may appear in meninges, kidneys, adrenals, bones, and fallopian tubes. Also, intestinal tuberculosis has been contacted via contaminated milk. With proper treatment, tuberculosis can be usually be successfully cured. Antibiotics need to be administered for approximately six months. There are several different antibiotics that are used due to development of resistance. Commonly used anti-tubercular drugs are; isoniazid; rifampin; pyrazinamide; ethambutol; and streptomycin. Infection, whether active or inactive, can be detected by the tuberculin (Mantoux) test, which reveals the development of skin sensitivity to tuberculoprotein. About 80% of the population of South India are tuberculin positive. In contrast, in 1980 in the United States, 5 to 10% of the population reacted positively to tuberculin, indicating the marked difference in rates of exposure to the tubercle bacillus. Of the approximately 15 million persons exposed to tubercle bacilli in the United States, only 23,000 developed active disease in 1986. Thus, only a small fraction of those who contact an infection develop active disease.

Describe the determinants of health and explain how those factors contribute to the development of this disease

“Tuberculosis flourishes wherever there is poverty, crowding, and chronic debilitating illness. Similarly, elders, with their weakened defences, are vulnerable”. In US, African-Americans, Native Americans, the Inuit, and Hispanics have higher incidence than others. Certain diseases are also risk factors; diabetes mellitus, Hodgkin’s disease, chronic lung disease, malnutrition, alcoholism, and immunosuppression. Where HIV infection is prevalent, it has become the single most important factor in the development of TB. Discuss the epidemiologic triangle as it relates to the communicable disease you have selected. Include the host factors, agent factors (presence or absence), and environmental factors. (The textbook describes each element of the epidemiologic triangle). The epidemiological model has been devised by scientist to study health problems. The triangle has three corners; Agent, or microbe that causes the disease; Host, or organism harboring the disease; and Environment, or those cause the disease to transmit. Agent or the microbe causing the disease is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. They are slender rods that sometimes show branching filamentous forms resembling fungal mycelium. They are described as Gram positive, “acid fast”, aerobic, nonmotile, noncapsulated and nonsporing. Host condition has profound impact on the disease. Diseases that are risk factor for the development of TB are; diabetes mellitus, Hodgkin’s disease, chronic lung disease, malnutrition, alcoholism, and immunosuppression. Where HIV infection is prevalent, it has become the single most important factor in the development of TB Regarding environmental factors, “Tuberculosis flourishes wherever there is poverty, crowding, and chronic debilitating illness. Similarly, elders, with their weakened defences, are vulnerable”. Poverty and tuberculosis go together, but with the progress of the AIDS pandemic, tuberculosis has become a problem for the rich nations also. Another complicating factor that has far graver consequence is the emergence and spread of multiple drug resistance and concomitant HIV infection.

Explain the role of the community health nurse (case finding, reporting, data collecting, data analysis, and follow-up).

The role of the community health nurse is includes managing services of patients diagnosed or suspected of having TB. This would be from initiation to completion of the treatment; any change in the diagnosis; and even till death. In some of the programs, management of individuals with latent TB infection or even those are now healed. The role of the nurse requires an approach to able to anticipate and identify problems; and appropriate measures are used to deal with the problem even before they develop. Such an approach requires more time and energy by the nurse and others involved in the initiative. However, their role may vary depending upon the availability of resources in the day clinics or the health departments. Additionally, they may also be required to provide care and some or all TB control activities. In such situations, it is recommended that administrative oversight be established so as to ensure that all the activities are completed, and desirable outcomes are achieved. Nurses at their own level would want to keep themselves updated on the modalities of the treatment. Their key responsibilities include; ensuring investigations are complete and documentation of outcomes; appropriate treatment is monitored and completed; and patient’s caregivers are also identified and treated. Besides they have critical role in adhering to treatment, treatment models, and patient education. Identify at least one national agency or organization that addresses the communicable disease chosen and describe how the organization(s) contributes to resolving or reducing the impact of disease. The mission of the National Tuberculosis Controllers Association (NTCA) is to work towards the elimination of tuberculosis in the US. It aims to do that a collective and concerted effort of the state, local, and territorial governments. It is these governments that are empowered by their jurisdiction and have the responsibility of carrying out prevention and control programs of TB. Their chief objective includes, developing and providing collective a unified approach to all the controlling organizations to advance their objective of TB control and elimination. They also “counsel agencies, organizations, committees, and task forces on the issues and actions affecting TB control and elimination at state, local, and territorial level”. It also works with these organizations towards advancement of TB control. They support those agencies and organizations that work towards advancement of TB control at state, local and territorial level. Finally, they advocate for “positions, policies, laws, and means to advance TB control and elimination”.

Bibliography

Ananthanarayan, R., & Paniker, C. J. (2000). Mycobacerium I - Tuberculosis. In R. Ananthanarayan, & C. K. Paniker, Textbook of Microbiology (pp. 324 - 336). Chennai: Orient Longman Limited. CDC. (n.d.). Lesson 1 Understanding the Epidemiologic Triangle through Infectious . Retrieved from CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/bam/teachers/documents/epi_1_triangle.pdf Global Tuberculosis Institute. (n.d.). Fundamentals of Tuberculosis Case Management. In Tuberculosis Case Management for Nurses (p. 5). New Jersey Medical School. Herchline, T. E., & Amorosa, J. K. (2013, 11 4). Approach Considerations. Retrieved from Tuberculosis Treatment & Management: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/230802-treatment Lipscomb, M. F. (1992). The Respiratory System. In V. Kumar, R. S. Cotran, & S. L. Robbins, Basic Pathology (pp. 416 - 422). Philadelphia : W.B.Saunders Company. NHS. (n.d.). Tuberculosis (TB). Retrieved from NHS: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tuberculosis/Pages/Introduction.aspx NTCA. (n.d.). NTCA. Retrieved from National Tuberculosis Controllers Association: http://www.tbcontrollers.org/ntca-2/#.Uu59GvldUrU Nursing Times. (2012, 07 06). Case management for tuberculosis. Retrieved from Nursing Times: http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice/clinical-zones/educators/case-management-for-tuberculosis/5046811.article

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Tuberculosis Research Paper

tb research paper

View sample tuberculosis research paper. Browse research paper examples for more inspiration. If you need a health research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

Mycobacteria are Gram-positive, nonmotile rods whose species show great microbiological diversity. Many have natural habitats in water and soil. However, some have become intracellular pathogens of higher vertebrates causing disease in animals and humans. Mycobacterium tuberculosis belongs to this group and has been in our midst since antiquity, but our ability to fight the organism is less than 150 years old.

Charting The Disease Through History

A study that determined the frequency of genetic polymorphisms in clinical strains led to the hypothesis that M. tuberculosis originated around 15 000 years ago and that M. bovis was the likely pathogen in humans until 1000 BC (Sreevatsan et al., 1997). After this, widespread M. tuberculosis infection emerged. Early evidence of infection in mankind dates from examinations of the spines of Egyptian mummies and of tomb paintings from 3500 BC, which confirm tuberculosis as a common disease in Egypt at this time (Zink et al., 2003). Around 2000 BC, tuberculosis was established in Europe, but the earliest evidence of the disease in Britain comes from graves dating from approximately 200 BC (Taylor et al., 2005).

There are references in the book of Deuteronomy, thought to have been written in the seventh century BC, to tuberculosis: ‘‘The lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning’’. In the Dark Ages (400–1000 AD), references to tuberculosis are infrequent. As the Roman Empire declined, King Clovis of 5th century France founded the Merovingian dynasty of kings and claimed to heal tuberculosis by the touch of his hand. The King’s evil became the term used for tuberculosis of the lymph glands as English and French monarchs laid hands on scrofulous patients in regular healing services. Queen Elizabeth I, for one, was faithful to this custom. However, the powers of the monarchy were not enough to protect themselves. King Edward VI succeeded to the throne in 1547 as the last in the male line of the house of Tudor. The king’s reign was cut brutally short when he died from tuberculosis at Greenwich in 1553, aged 15 (Holmes and McMorrough, 2001).

Although it has been suggested that colonial Europe brought tuberculosis to the Americas, there is evidence from Peruvian and Chilean mummified tissue a millennium old, that humans inhabiting the Americas had been exposed to mycobacterial disease before the advent of the European ships. Unlike bubonic plague, which in the Middle Ages swept through Europe in short, swift frenzies, tuberculosis burned with a steady, consuming flame. The disease was known as the white plague because of the anemia of chronic disease that rendered sufferers pale. Urbanization across Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries provided the perfect breeding ground for tuberculosis, as poor populations with bad sanitation gathered in close contact. Tuberculosis was responsible for 20% of deaths in London in the 1600s, as recorded in the Bills of Mortality. Characters in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1600) and Macbeth (1606) were afflicted with consumption. The British heavily colonized Australia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, leading to bitter conflict with the native Aboriginal populations. More devastating than the conflict, however, was the impact of European diseases to which Aboriginal people had no immunity, including tuberculosis. Aboriginal numbers decreased from an estimated 1 000 000 in 1788 to approximately 93 000 in 1901.

The epidemic of tuberculosis in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe and the Americas is illustrated in Figure 1 and underscored by the many people who succumbed to the disease, both real and in the arts. The heroine, Mimi, of Puccini’s La Bohe`me suffers from tuberculosis (a theme carried over in the modern film adaptation ‘Moulin Rouge’). Violetta, heroine of Verdi’s La Traviata also dies of the disease. Dickens described tuberculosis in Nicholas Nickleby as a ‘‘disease in which death and life are so strangely blended, that death takes the glow and hue of life.’’ Tuberculosis patients were frequent characters in nineteenth-century Russian literature, and even inspired a character type; the consumptive nihilist, examples of which include Bazarov from Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, Katerina Ivanovna from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Kirillov from Dostoevsky’s Demons, and Ippolit and Marie from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot.

Tuberculosis Research Paper

The real death toll was much more profound. Consumption was probably the most common killer of American colonial adults and accounted for more than 25% of deaths in New York City between 1810 and 1815 (Holmberg, 1990). James McGill, the founder of McGill University, reported in his journal the culmination of months of hopeless vigilance ‘‘At 2:00 am on July 4, 1812, my adopted daughter died of decay.’’ John Keats died from tuberculosis at the age of 25 in 1821, as did Frederic Chopin at 39 years in 1849. Tuberculosis killed Emily Bronte in 1848 (Wuthering Heights), Anne Bronte in 1849 (Agnes Grey) and Charlotte Bronte in 1855 (Jane Eyre). Doc Holliday, the American gunfighter and gambler, worked as a dentist until 1872 when tuberculosis forced him to move to the West for its dry climate, where he eventually succumbed to the disease in 1887. Robert Louis Stevenson died at 44 years in 1894 from tuberculosis despite a partial recovery while in Saranac in 1887–88. Franz Kafka, the Austrian Jewish novelist, contracted tuberculosis in 1917 and died in a sanatorium in Kierling, Austria in 1924. Jimmie Rodgers was American country music’s first important recording star but died from tuberculosis in 1933 shortly after writing one of his last songs, ‘TB Blues.’ Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan and its first governor-general, died of tuberculosis in Karachi in 1948. George Orwell died of tuberculosis in January 1950, 1 year after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Of course, these were the famous; the death toll on the huddled masses was much more far-reaching.

During World War II, increases in tuberculosis were evident in all great cities. In Poland, the rate of tuberculosis tripled and the death rate in Warsaw from tuberculosis in 1944 was 500 per 100 000 people, a sharp increase compared with the background mortality in Western Europe at the time (Figure 1). By April 1945, British Army forces had advanced across Lower Saxony toward Bergen-Belsen. That day, the Germans opened negotiations for the surrender of the concentration camp, stating that the camp had 9000 sick inmates. When the British took the camp on 15 April, the first sights that they encountered were distressing. The appalling conditions of the camp had been a perfect breeding ground for tuberculosis.

Describing The Disease

An early written description of pulmonary tuberculosis was from the last great king of ancient Assyria, Assurbanipal (668–627 BC): ‘‘The patient coughs frequently; his sputum is thick and sometimes contains blood. His breathing is like a flute.’’ Two centuries later, Hippocrates (460–370 BC), in his writings, described phthisis (a Greek word meaning chronic wasting or consumption) as the most prevalent disease of the times, and believed that it killed almost everyone affected. During the reign of the Roman Empire, Claudius Galen (129–216 AD) served as personal physician to Marcus Aurelius and recognized that tuberculosis was contagious.

Advances in the understanding of the disease were few and far between for several centuries thereafter. However, from the origins of the Renaissance came a revolution in the knowledge of disease. In 1546, Girolamo Tracastoro wrote the book De Morbis Contagiosis. Tracastoro wrote that the seeds of contagion remain in such bodies as articles of clothing and bedsheets used by the infected. In the seventeenth century, the anatomical revolution produced knowledge about the body from the study of the dead. In his Opera Medica of 1679, the Dutch physician Dr. Sylvius was the first to identify tubercles in the lungs of consumptive patients. An edict issued by the Italian Republic of Lucca in 1699 states that, ‘‘henceforth, human health should no longer be endangered by objects remaining after the death of a consumptive.’’ In 1720, the English physician Benjamin Marten speculated, in his publication, A New Theory of Consumption, that tuberculosis could be caused by ‘‘wonderfully minute living creatures’’ (Doetsch, 1978). In 1761, Leopold Auenbrugger of Austria, the father of percussion, published a book about the relation of pathological changes and clinical signs of tuberculosis. In 1782, the physicist Graumann presented a treatise where he proved tuberculosis and syphilis were not identical.

Significant research into the causes and cure of tuberculosis began in earnest in the nineteenth century. In 1810, Carmichael, a London physician, declared that the tuberculosis of cattle is transmissible to man through the use of tuberculoid meat or milk. The French physician Gaspard Bayle described the damage caused by tuberculosis in 900 autopsies. Rene´-The´ophile-Hyacinthe Lae¨nnec, most famous for designing the stethoscope, described the evolution of the disease from the initial tubercle through its final stages. Lae¨nnec died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1826 at the age of 45. Known until then as scrofula or consumption, the name tuberculosis seems first to have been used in 1839 by Johann Schoenlein. The Lancet in 1847 blamed London’s milk supply for the rise in scrofula. In 1865, the French military doctor Jean-Antoine Villemin demonstrated that consumption could be passed from humans to cattle. On the basis of this evidence, he postulated a specific microorganism as the cause.

In 1880, Robert Koch was appointed director of the bacteriological laboratories at the Imperial Health Office in Berlin. In 1882, Koch discovered a staining technique that enabled him to see Mycobacterium tuberculosis under a microscope and showed that bacilli could be isolated in pure cultures and produce tuberculosis in animals that were inoculated. He published his work under the title ‘The Etiology of Tuberculosis,’ in the Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift in which he proved the infectious nature of the disease which ultimately earned him the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1905 (Kaufmann, 2005). Although meticulously documented, his research met with some opposition; because of its chronic nature, tuberculosis until then was widely believed to be inherited rather than inhaled. However, the description of humanity’s deadliest enemy had now truly begun and a century later, in June 1998, the genome sequence of M. tuberculosis was published (Cole et al., 1998).

Beginning The Fight Against The Disease

Early measures.

While the real fight against the disease began in the nineteenth century, the foresight of Pliny the Elder (28–79 AD), the Roman Senator, cannot be understated. He sent one of his freedmen, who suffered from tuberculosis, on a cruise to Egypt and when the dry air of the desert did not cure the patient, he sent him to a chalet in the Alps. However, his dietary prescription was less conventional: ‘‘For phthisis one had the liver of a wolf in wine, the lard of a thin sow fed on herbs, the flesh of an ass with a bouillon made from it.’’

Eighteen centuries later, Hermann Brehmer, a Silesian botany student suffering from tuberculosis, traveled to the Himalayan Mountains to pursue his botanical studies. He returned home cured and began to study medicine. In 1854, he presented his doctoral dissertation, Tuberculosis is a Curable Disease. In the same year, he built the first sanitorium in Gorbersdorf. In 1883, Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, dying from pulmonary tuberculosis, traveled to Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York to spend his final days. He attributed his subsequent recovery to the fresh air of the mountains and in 1885, built the first American sanatorium. By 1930, the United States had 600 sanatoriums with a total of 84 000 beds. For the wealthy, the sanatorium was a combination luxury hotel and hospital, as immortalized in Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain. The sanatoria provided the first effective step to control tuberculosis by separating those infected from those who were not and providing a healthy diet and climate for those who had the disease.

The Italian Forlanini in 1890 observed that lung collapse tended to have a favorable impact on the outcome of the disease. This is because M. tuberculosis is an obligate aerobe and the absence of oxygen in the collapsed lungs led to its demise. With the introduction of artificial pneumothorax (Figure 2) and other surgical methods to reduce lung volume, the depressing era of helplessness in the face of tuberculosis was over, and active therapy had begun.

Tuberculosis Research Paper

In 1886, de Cerenville introduced rib resection to collapse the underlying lung. In 1900, Dr. Edward Archibald, the father of thoracic surgery in North America, had tuberculosis and was treated in the Trudeau Sanatorium at Saranac Lake. In 1912, Archibald was the first surgeon to perform thoracoplasty in North America at Montreal. Thoracoplasty emerged from the array of collapse techniques to become the predominant form of collapse therapy. Furthermore, the discovery of radiation by Von Ro¨ ntgen in 1895 meant the progress and severity of a patient’s disease could now be accurately followed.

By 1890, Koch had published a series of four papers describing a remedy for tuberculosis – a glycerol extract of pure culture of tubercle bacilli – as well as the reaction of animals infected with M. tuberculosis and the differential responses to tuberculin in healthy and diseased persons. Koch noted that the extract ‘‘will enable us to diagnose questionable cases of early consumption even when we fail to detect bacilli’’ (Kaufmann, 2005). Arthur Conan Doyle correctly challenged the therapeutic value of Koch’s lymph, arguing that it might remove traces of the enemy, but it left deadly germs ‘‘deep in the invaded country.’’ Its real value, Conan Doyle asserted, was as ‘‘an admirable aid to diagnosis’’ to determine if a patient was ‘‘in any way tubercular’’. In Paris, French bacteriologists Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin serially passaged M. bovis 230 times from 1908 to 1919 at the Pasteur Institute (Hagwood, 1999). The resulting strain, bacille Calmette-Gue´rin, known commonly as BCG, was found to be avirulent. It was first administered to humans in 1921 and is still applied today with varying efficacy.

Wade Hampton Frost’s epidemiologic studies in the 1930s showed that, even without chemotherapy, the incidence of tuberculosis in the United States was declining steadily (Frost, 1995). In Western countries, deaths from tuberculosis fell from 200 per 100 000 in 1900 to 50 per 100 000 by 1950 (Figure 3).

Tuberculosis Research Paper

The Antibiotic Era

In 1885, the Italian bacteriologist Cantani had tuberculosis patients inhale cultures of nonpathogenic bacteria, which led to a fall in the quantity of tubercle bacilli in patients’ sputum. In 1939, Selman A. Waksman had discovered the inhibitory effect of certain fungi, especially actinomycetes, on bacterial growth. In 1940, his team at the University of California were able to isolate an effective antituberculous antibiotic, actinomycin; however, this proved to be too toxic for clinical use (Waksman, 1969). In the years that followed, research with actinomycetes, aspergillus, and other microorganisms demonstrated the antituberculous activities of their products. In January 1944, Waksman announced the discovery of a drug called streptomycin isolated from a fungus, Streptomyces lavendula and Patricia, a 21-year-old woman was the first patient to be successfully treated with the drug (Schatz, 1944).

In 1946, Lehmann announced the discovery of paraamino-salicylic (PAS). By 1947, strains of M. tuberculosis had developed resistance to streptomycin. In 1948, the combination of streptomycin and PAS was found to be very effective against M. tuberculosis. In 1952 at Seaview Hospital, New York, a new drug called isoniazid was used to treat tuberculosis patients by Robitzek and Selikoff. Other antituberculous drugs followed with the discovery of pyrazinamide in 1954, cycloserine in 1955, ethambutol in 1962, and rifampicin in 1963. The combination of the early bactericidal activity of isoniazid and the sterilizing activity of rifampicin shortened treatment to less than a year, resulting in short-course chemotherapy. Several studies from Madras and elsewhere demonstrated that treatment was effective when given at home rather than in the sanitorium and that antituberculous drugs were effective when given intermittently rather than daily. The clinical effectiveness of antituberculous drugs led to the closure of the sanatoria in the 1950s and 1960s.

Deaths from tuberculosis in the United States dropped from 188 per 100 000 in 1904 to approximately 1 per 100 000 in 1980. M. tuberculosis was no longer a bacteriological exception. It could be assailed and beaten into retreat.

Tuberculosis Resurgent

From the 1950s to 1985, the Western world saw a rapid decline in the incidence of tuberculosis. For example, 84 304 contracted the disease in 1953 in the United States, falling to 22 201 in 1985. In 1960, Dr. John Crofton at the University of Edinburgh proposed that a combination of streptomycin, PAS, and isoniazid made tuberculosis completely curable and he declared all-out war to conquer the disease. In 1970, William Stewart, the U.S. Surgeon General, is reported to have told the U.S. Congress that the United States was ‘‘ready to close the book on infectious disease.’’ In 1984, the Public Health Service reported that the number of tuberculosis cases reported annually in 1953 had declined by 74% (Huebner and Castro, 1995). In 1987, the Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis put forth a plan to eliminate tuberculosis (1 case per 1 million population) by the year 2010 (Anonymous, 1993). These advances contributed to the sense that mankind had prevailed over M. tuberculosis and funding for the fight against tuberculosis was dramatically reduced in Western countries. Humanity had won the war … or had it?

M. tuberculosis was not ready to leave without a fight. Patients recovering rapidly after starting treatment and then defaulting from further treatment as well as inadequate therapy of tuberculosis in counties with poor access to antituberculous drugs led to the development of multidrug resistance. A survey (1961–1968) in the United States that examined drug susceptibility results found 3.5% drug monoresistance and the United States reported the first outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis in 1970. In 1985, for the first time in that century, the decline in tuberculosis stagnated and then began a slow, steady increase. Tuberculosis had outsmarted its smartest opponent.

From 1990 to 1992, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta investigated outbreaks of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in eight hospitals in Florida, New York, and New Jersey (Young and Wormser, 1994). Tuberculosis was found to be transmitted not only from patient to patient, but also from patient to health-care worker. The WHO reported that the death rate of patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the United States was approximately 70%. The typical interval from diagnosis to death was 4–16 weeks and 80% of cases were HIV-positive. HIV and tuberculosis had forged a secret alliance.

The International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) tested a countrywide system for tuberculosis control by treating tuberculous patients in several poor developing countries. It was proven effective even in difficult settings. As part of this system, it was noted that the emergence of multidrug resistance could be avoided by supervision of drug taking. The World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the strategy and named it DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy, shortcourse) as a framework for global prevention and control of tuberculosis that can be modified according to local needs in its implementation. DOTS was crucial to the restoration of tuberculosis control during the multidrugresistant outbreaks of tuberculosis in North America.

The possibility of an untreatable form of tuberculosis attracted extensive media attention and the funding that had been pulled from tuberculosis management was reinstated in many Western countries. From 1993 to 2003, the incidence of tuberculosis in the United States decreased 44% and is now occurring at a historic low level (14 093 cases in 2005) (Taylor et al., 2005). However, the WHO estimated that in 1995, there were more global deaths from tuberculosis than in any previous year in history. Once again, tuberculosis had adapted to its environment and found new potential for survival in developing countries, where poor health infrastructure and poverty have contributed to a sustained increase in the incidence of tuberculosis.

Currently, the WHO estimates that 2 billion people (one-third of the world’s population) are infected with tuberculosis. There are 2 million deaths annually from tuberculosis and 98% of these are in the developing world. If left unchecked, within 20 years tuberculosis will kill a further 35 million people. In 2003, 8.8 million new cases of tuberculosis arose, with 80% occurring in 22 countries. There are approximately 425 000 new multidrug-resistant cases every year, with the highest rates in the former USSR and China. Tuberculosis has reestablished its position as the leading infectious killer in the world, simply by changing its predominant hunting ground.

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Tuberculosis articles: The New England Journal of Medicine
The development of a highly effective, oral, 6-month regimen for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, which previously took 18 to 24 months to cure, is one of the defining...
Tuberculosis - Latest research and news | Nature
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by strains of bacteria known as mycobacteria. The disease most commonly affects the lungs and can be fatal if not treated. However, most...
The Pathogenesis of Tuberculosis: The Early Infiltrate of ...
This paper reviews nearly two centuries of evidence that protection and tissue damage are mediated by separate disease entities in humans. Primary TB mediates protective immunity to disseminated infection while post-primary TB causes tissue damage that results in formation of cavities.
(PDF) Tuberculosis—an overview - ResearchGate
Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases responsible for millions of deaths annually across the world. In this paper we present a general overview of TB including...
Tuberculosis: A disease without boundaries - ScienceDirect
The purpose of this review is to highlight the current literature on epidemiology, pathogenesis, treatment, and control of TB, in order to better understand the disease in hopes of providing better treatment through novel research and public health efforts. 2.
Research | TB | CDC
The TB Trials Consortium (TBTC) is a collaboration of North American and international clinical investigators whose mission is to conduct programmatically relevant research concerning the diagnosis, clinical management, and prevention of TB infection and disease. Behavioral and Social Science Research
Mycobacterium tuberculosis - PubMed
In this infographic, the genetics, phylogeny, physiology, and pathogenesis mechanisms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are shown. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the etiological agent of tuberculosis (TB), the leading cause of death due to a single infectious agent, claiming 1.7 million lives in 2016.
Research Paper On Tuberculosis | WOW Essays
Published: 03/26/2020 ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS Description of the communicable disease (causes, symptoms, mode of transmission, complications, treatment) and the demographic of interest (mortality, morbidity, incidence, and prevalence) Tumberculosis (TB) is a communicable chronic granulomatous disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis Research Paper - Research Paper Examples ...
By 1890, Koch had published a series of four papers describing a remedy for tuberculosis – a glycerol extract of pure culture of tubercle bacilli – as well as the reaction of animals infected with M. tuberculosis and the differential responses to tuberculin in healthy and diseased persons.