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    Tuberculosis: A Timeless Challenge For Medicine: Figure 1: Chest X-Ray of Tuberculosis

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    Joey Lam
    Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient disease that still kills over 1.5 million people annually. It has infected humans for thousands of years and was a major cause of death in the 18th-19th centuries. While curable and preventable, TB persists as poverty, overcrowding, and limited healthcare provide conditions for it to spread. Modern medicine has developed drugs to treat TB, but drug-resistant strains remain a challenge, especially in developing nations where most new cases occur. Continued global efforts aim to discover new treatments and ultimately eradicate this infectious disease.

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    Tuberculosis: A Timeless Challenge For Medicine: Figure 1: Chest X-Ray of Tuberculosis

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    Joey Lam
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    Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient disease that still kills over 1.5 million people annually. It has infected humans for thousands of years and was a major cause of death in the 18th-19th centuries. While curable and preventable, TB persists as poverty, overcrowding, and limited healthcare provide conditions for it to spread. Modern medicine has developed drugs to treat TB, but drug-resistant strains remain a challenge, especially in developing nations where most new cases occur. Continued global efforts aim to discover new treatments and ultimately eradicate this infectious disease.

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    Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient disease that still kills over 1.5 million people annually. It has infected humans for thousands of years and was a major cause of death in the 18th-19th centuries. While curable and preventable, TB persists as poverty, overcrowding, and limited healthcare provide conditions for it to spread. Modern medicine has developed drugs to treat TB, but drug-resistant strains remain a challenge, especially in developing nations where most new cases occur. Continued global efforts aim to discover new treatments and ultimately eradicate this infectious disease.

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    12 views4 pages

    Tuberculosis: A Timeless Challenge For Medicine: Figure 1: Chest X-Ray of Tuberculosis

    Uploaded by

    Joey Lam
    Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient disease that still kills over 1.5 million people annually. It has infected humans for thousands of years and was a major cause of death in the 18th-19th centuries. While curable and preventable, TB persists as poverty, overcrowding, and limited healthcare provide conditions for it to spread. Modern medicine has developed drugs to treat TB, but drug-resistant strains remain a challenge, especially in developing nations where most new cases occur. Continued global efforts aim to discover new treatments and ultimately eradicate this infectious disease.

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    Tuberculosis: A Timeless Challenge for Medicine

    As COVID-19 dominates the world’s attention, it bears remembering that


    another, older respiratory disease that is both preventable and treatable is still killing 1.5
    million people every year, that is, Tuberculosis (TB).

    Tuberculosis has claimed its victims throughout much of known human history.
    Archaeologists have managed to trace its origins back 9,000 years to Atlit Yam, a city
    now under the Mediterranean Sea, in the remains of a mother and child buried together.
    The earliest written documents describing TB, dating back to 3300 and 2300 years ago,
    were found in India and in China respectively. TB then reached epidemic proportions in
    Europe and North America during the 18th and 19th centuries, earning the sobriquet,
    “Captain of All These Men of Death”. As a matter of fact, famous individuals such as Lu
    Xun, Jane Austen and Nelson Mandela have also succumbed to this deadly disease.
    Therefore, it leaves us wondering, why is an ancient disease still a modern-day problem?

    Tuberculosis is a highly contagious disease caused


    by bacteria that attacks the lungs. It begins with a mild
    fever and malaise, followed by a painful cough and
    shortness of breath. Fever, night sweats, chest pain and
    coughing up blood are some other common symptoms of
    TB. Other parts of the body can also be affected, for
    example, lymph nodes, kidneys, bones, joints, etc. TB is
    spread through the air from one person to another. When
    someone who is infected with the disease coughs, speaks,
    laughs, sings, or sneezes, the germs are transmitted via
    microscopic droplets released into the air. Hence, the
    infection prospers in crowds, spreading to people in close
    reach. Figure 1: Chest X-ray of Tuberculosis

    While TB is curable and preventable, it is the 13th leading cause of death and the
    second leading infectious killer after COVID-19, above HIV and AIDS. In 2021, an
    estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with TB worldwide. A total of 1.6 million people
    died from TB in 2021, including 187 000 people with HIV. The longer a person goes
    undiagnosed, and the later treatment begins, the more likely an infectious disease is to
    spread, sicken and kill.

    TB was well documented as ‘Phthisis’ or ‘Consumption’ in Ancient Greece. A


    Greek physician, Clarissimus Galen, suggested that an effective treatment of
    tuberculosis should include fresh air, milk, and soy beverages in 174 AD. In the Middle
    Ages, a new clinical form of tuberculosis was described as ‘scrofula’ which was also
    known as ‘king’s evil’ in England and France. There was a popular belief that the disease
    could be treated with the ‘royal touch’.

    Over the centuries, many theories have


    existed, describing the illness as an infectious
    disease, a hereditary one, or a type of cancer. It
    wasn’t until the 19th century when German
    physician and microbiologist, Robert Koch first
    identified Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.
    tuberculosis) as the cause of tuberculosis infection. It
    was later hypothesised that infection with the
    Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) strain of the
    disease, found in cows, could offer protection
    Figure 2: Mycobacterium tuberculosis
    against human tuberculosis. In 1921, the first
    Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) tuberculosis vaccine was administered to humans. The
    vaccine was developed by French scientists Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin to
    protect against tuberculosis of the lungs. Later on, the discovery of a compound called
    streptomycin would pave the way for the first successful attempt at curing a patient
    suffering from TB.

    While modern medicine and drugs


    have advanced, unfortunately so has TB. It
    remains widespread around the world, with
    one in three people infected, according to the
    World Health Organization. However, 90% of
    the people infected with the germ never
    develop the disease. Infection of TB is hard to
    detect as the bacteria are usually held in Figure 3: Spreading of Tuberculosis
    check by the immune system, which means
    that an infected person may not show evident symptoms of the disease. The infection is
    more likely to develop into a disease when a person's immune system is compromised,
    for instance, due to HIV, ageing or other illnesses.

    Most people who fall ill with TB live in developing countries, namely Bangladesh,
    China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa. The people
    in these countries are more likely to be in poorly ventilated and overcrowded conditions,
    which provide ideal conditions for TB bacteria to spread. Repeated exposure to large
    concentrations of infected people can increase a person's chance of infection.
    Furthermore, areas where poverty and malnutrition are more common tend to have a
    higher rate of TB infection. Limited access to healthcare in these regions also plays a
    role in the widespread of TB.
    Though the number of Tuberculosis cases is increasing at an alarming rate, a
    global effort is now being made to discover innovative technology and treatments for TB
    patients. Scientists and researchers worldwide have come up with a treatment plan to
    effectively treat TB. It is anticipated that each patient will have a personalised approach
    to TB therapy due to a mixture of new medications, revised durations, and a more
    effective assessment of response to treatment. Healthcare providers will also be able to
    construct a treatment combination and duration with more precision for each patient.

    With that being said, the future of tuberculosis therapy seems promising. As
    Stephen Ambrose once said, ‘The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a
    source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future’. By combining these
    advances in modern medicine, there is a possibility to completely eradicate this
    infectious yet deadly disease in the near future. Let us call for a TB-free world, breaking
    the cycle of suffering once and for all.

    References:

    Figure 1: https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/358610-overview

    Figure 2: https://www.flickr.com/photos/niaid/5149398656

    Figure 3: https://www.everydayhealth.com/tuberculosis/guide/risk-factors-causes-prevention/

    https://www.npr.org/2007/06/01/10551019/why-tb-remains-a-modern-and-deadly-problem

    https://www.news-medical.net/amp/health/History-of-Tuberculosis.aspx

    https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tuberculosis-tb/#:~:text=Tuberculosis%20(TB)%20is%20a%20bacterial,glands%2C
    %20bones%20and%20nervous%20system

    https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis

    https://insights.omnia-health.com/clinical/future-tb-care

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/we-must-use-lessons-learned-from-tackling-covid-to-fight-tuberculosis/
    投稿者：

    彭靖敏 苏慧欣 关婷玮 李晓昀


    姓名 Kwan Teng Wey Lee Siao Yun
    Phang Jean Mun Soh Hui Sin

    学号 18432 18165 18083 18560

    班级 SR2SCB SR2SCB SR2SCB SR2SCB

    电话号码 012-2332784 019-3528813 017-6601882 011-26131730

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