We discovered its cause 144 years ago. It’s still a massive problem.
TB is presented not as a new threat, but as a resurgent one. Despite our efforts, tuberculosis never truly disappeared; instead, after decades of decline, it is now rising again in the US and other first world countries. In the US, rates had been falling for about 30 years, but recent cases in San Francisco, Long Island, Seattle, and a major Kansas outbreak show that TB is reappearing in places many people would not expect.
A major reason for this “return” is that TB often comes back through latent infection. It is reported that 13 million people in the US may have latent TB, and more than 80 percent of US TB cases result from latent infections later becoming active. That makes TB hard to eliminate: people can carry the bacteria for years without symptoms, then become sick and contagious later when their immune system weakens.
One of the biggest factors to TB’s comeback is tied to public health weaknesses, not just biology. Disinvestment in public health, medication shortages, diagnostic delays worsened by Covid, and the difficulty of identifying and treating latent or subclinical cases being such cases. Because TB can look like an ordinary long-lasting cough or other mild illness, diagnosis is often late, giving it more time to spread.
Researchers warn that the return of TB is not only a localized problem but part of a global rebound. TB regained its place as the world’s leading infectious killer in 2023, causing about 10 million infections and 1.5 million deaths annually.
The full article is available via the original source at Vox, you can find the link here.
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