March 24 is known as World Tuberculosis (TB) day. Its creation is an effort to make people more aware of what TB actually is and how serious of a problem it is. TB is the leading cause of death of infectious diseases, killing around 1.5 million people last year and infecting a total of 10 million. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, this year it is expected that around 4 million will die from tuberculosis. In the US, TB is not as prevalent of a problem, making it entirely important for awareness events such as World Tuberculosis Day to exist. The theme for this year’s World TB Day is “It’s Time,” referring to the increasingly important need to end tuberculosis, which officials hope to do by 2030.
Tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Discovered by Robert Koch in 1882, tuberculosis has continued to cause a plethora of problems throughout its discovery. Tuberculosis infects the lungs, and as such causes respiratory-related symptoms, such as cough, fatigue, fever, chills, loss of appetite and weight. A bloody sputum is often produced. However, these symptoms only appear if the infected individual has an active TB infection, meaning that it is actively replicating throughout the body. Tuberculosis is unique in that it can hide inside macrophages, evading the immune response. The immune response can usually keep the bacterium contained and non-replicating, causing a latent infection with no noticeable signs or symptoms. However, in immunocompromised individuals, the immune system is not able to keep the bacteria contained, allowing it to spread and replicate. This is what occurs when a person has an active infection, and can oftentimes be deadly if the bacteria are multidrug resistant or the disease is not caught early enough.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a very slow growing bacteria. As such, when treating tuberculosis, it is often necessary to use more than one antibiotic for an extended period of time, such as 6 months or even more. This is to make sure that the bacterium does not develop a resistance to the antibiotics used, as it would be more difficult to randomly produce two separate mutations that make them resistant to both antibiotics. However, more and more strains of tuberculosis are becoming increasingly antibiotic resistant. These strains require the use of even more antibiotics that are oftentimes more costly, more dangerous, and are usually less effective. As treatment of tuberculosis becomes more and more difficult, initiatives are being taken to help further along disease prevention, rather than disease treatment, although disease treatment is still entirely important. These efforts might include more extensive diagnostic testing, isolating infected individuals from at-risk individuals, and making people more aware of what the disease is and how it is spread.
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