Evidence of the tuberculosis-causing Mycobacterium tuberculosis was first reported in human remains thousands of years ago, though it is estimated that tuberculosis (TB) may have been around as long as 3 million years. Fragments of the spinal column from Egyptian mummies from 2400 BCE showed signs of tuberculosis. In ancient Greece, TB was called “phthisis”. Around 460 BCE, Hippocrates identified phthisis as the most widespread disease of the times, and noted that it was almost always fatal. Hundreds of years later, in 1882, Robert Koch discovered a staining technique that enabled him to see TB. During that time, TB killed one out of every seven people living in the United States and Europe. Dr. Koch’s discovery was the most important step taken toward the control and elimination of this deadly disease.
For a human pathogen with no known environmental reservoir, Mycobacterium tuberculosis has honed the art of survival and has persisted in human communities from antiquity through modern times.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) is a group of closely related rod-shaped, non-motile, slow-growing, acid-fast bacteria, which includes M. bovis and M. hominis, the most common cause of human tuberculosis (TB). TB transmission occurs when a patient with a contagious form of the infection coughs, spreading the bacilli to its next host through the air. People can even acquire bovine TB (caused by M. bovis) by consuming unpasteurized dairy products from infected cattle.
Tuberculosis is a preventable and treatable infectious disease. Having said that, it is still one of the major contributors to morbidity and mortality in developing countries where there is less-than-adequate access to care.
During a May, 2024 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Lisa George, a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control, said, “TB is the world’s deadliest infectious disease, briefly eclipsed by COVID-19. However, TB has reclaimed this top position as the pandemic has subsided.”
Tuberculosis is a disease caused by bacteria that are spread from person to person through the air when someone coughs or sneezes or even just through talking. TB usually affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body, such as the brain, the kidneys, or the spine, according to the CDC.
Though the U.S. has one of the world’s lowest rates of TB, cases jumped 16% from 2022 to 2023, reaching 9,615 around the nation (2.9 cases per 100,000 persons) the CDC reported in March. TB rates had fallen in the U.S. year-over-year for 27 years prior.
Foreign aid investments by the U.S., Europe, Japan, and others have helped developing countries fight TB. That notwithstanding, an estimated 10.6 million people become ill with TB every year, and 1.3 million people die from it worldwide – some 25,000 people per week.
In its annual Global Tuberculosis Report, 2023, the World Health Organization reports that worldwide, an estimated 10.6 million people developed TB in 2022 with a total of 1.3 million people who died from a TB infection in 2022. The common symptoms of the infectious disease include prolonged cough (sometimes with blood), chest pain, weakness, fatigue, weight loss, fever, and night sweats.
In April 2024, one person died as a result of a tuberculosis outbreak among residents of a single-room occupancy hotel in Long Beach, California. Fourteen other cases have been associated with that outbreak and investigators have identified 170 people who may have been exposed.
City officials said the outbreak at the privately operated hotel is isolated to a “distinct population” of people with “significant barriers to care, including homelessness and housing insecurity, mental illness, substance abuse and serious medical comorbidities.”
Some people develop TB disease soon after becoming infected (within weeks) before their immune system can fight the infection. Other people may get sick years later, when their immune system becomes weak for another reason.
