Evolving Concepts of Pathogenesis, Transmission, Diagnosis, Treatment and Antibiotic Resistance of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis

Bacterial pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes tuberculosis a complex granulomatous disease which is a global health concern. It is a very slow growing bacteria, thus is extremely time consuming to culture in laboratory. It can survive the attack of the immune arsenal of our body; can successfully hide inside the macrophage. This makes long periods of uninterrupted antibiotic treatment necessary for the patients with tuberculosis and contributes to drug resistance very quickly [WHO 2014]. All this poses an extreme challenge to the scientists and the medical community to develop effective drug, monitor and treat this disease across globe. Before the discovery of anti-tubercular drugs, this disease was one of the most dreaded diseases. In absence of any drugs the only form of treatment recommended was healthy diet, rest and fresh air. Patients were sent to Tuberculosis sanatorium hoping that they might survive. The origin of this pathogen is traced back to Africa around 70,000 years ago and they successfully coevolved with humans as they migrated out of Africa and settled across the globe. Nearly 10,000 years ago there was a sudden change in human demography and the human population density increased suddenly, this is termed as Neolithic Demographic Transition. Genomic data of Mycobacterium across

Many people take breathing for granted, some never give it a second thought until a problem presents itself. Respiratory diseases affect millions of Americans as well as people from all over the world. Anyone can suffer from these disorders to include men, women, and children, with conditions ranging from mild, moderate, to chronic in nature. This paper will focus on one of the many respiratory disease called mycobacterium tuberculosis; more commonly referred to as TB.

“Tuberculosis (TB), a multisystem disease with myriad presentations and manifestations, is the most common cause of infectious disease–related mortality worldwide. Although TB rates are decreasing in the United States, the disease is becoming more common in many parts of the world. In addition, the prevalence of drug-resistant TB is increasing worldwide. TB is caused by M tuberculosis, a slow-growing obligate aerobe and a facultative intracellular parasite. The organism grows in parallel groups called cords (as seen in the image below). It retains many

Tuberculosis is a disease of an infectious nature caused by a bacterium known as mycobacterium tuberculosis. The disease spreads through the air. People with the disease can spread it to susceptible people through coughing, sneezing, talking or spitting. It mainly affects the lungs and other parts such as the lymph nodes and kidneys can also be affected. The symptoms for TB are fatigue, coughing, night sweats, weight loss and fever. One third of the population of the world is affected with mycobacterium tuberculosis. The rate of infection is estimated to be one person per second. About 14 million people in the world are infected with active tuberculosis. Drug resistant TB has been recorded to be a serious public health hazard in many countries. Resistant strains have developed making it difficult to treat the disease. TB has caused millions of death mainly in people living with HIV/AIDS ADDIN EN.CITE Ginsberg19981447(Ginsberg, 1998)1447144717Ginsberg, Ann M.The Tuberculosis Epidemic: Scientific Challenges and OpportunitiesPublic Health Reports (1974-)Public Health Reports (1974-)128-13611321998Association of Schools of Public Health00333549http://www.jstor.org/stable/4598234( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_3" o "Ginsberg, 1998 #1447" Ginsberg, 1998). The World Health Organization came up with the DOTS (Directly Observed, Therapy, Short course) strategy. The approach involves diagnosing cases and treating patients with drugs for about 6-8

Among many misconceptions, tuberculosis is not a disease of the past. Tuberculosis remains a public health issue. It is estimated that one-third of the total world population is infected by tuberculosis (TB). The American lung association (2013) states, in 2011 alone there were nearly 9,000,000 new diagnosed cases of tuberculosis around the world and an estimated 1.4 million deaths because of this disease. In the United States, TB is not as common (but still a problem). In 2011, only 10,500 people reported having TB (Trends in Tuberculosis Morbidity and

Tuberculosis is one of the major causes of death from many infectious diseases (3). Out of 9 million people who are infected with mycobacteria, about 2 million deaths occur from tuberculosis every year (3). Unfortunately, the prevalence of tuberculosis is in a continuous increase due to increased number of Human immunodeificnecy virus (HIV) patients, bacterial resistance to anti-tuberculous drugs, and growing number of recreational drug users (3). The pathogen responsible for bacterial infection, potentially causing tuberculosis, is mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) (2). Persons with adequate immune system can control the bacterial infection so mycobacteria remain dormant for a long time (11). In a typical tuberculous granuloma, mature

The resistance of the organism towards the host immune response and its ability to survive and reactivate at a later stage is poorly understood. An obligate aerobe, M. tuberculosis resides within alveolar mononuclear phagocytes and is thought to use a variety of redox systems to protect itself against the oxidative intermediates generated by the macrophages (Shinnick et al., 1995). An important fact to have in mind is that the thyroid system can also aid in the regeneration of inactivated proteins caused by the oxidative stress.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a very prevalent, very contagious, and very deadly disease worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one third of the population is infected with TB. (Centers for Disease Control Data and statistics) While less common than it has ever been, tuberculosis has seen an upsurge in the last three decades directly related to the AIDS epidemic, but also as a result of the development of many multi-drug-resistant strains. This is of particular concern in developing nations hit hard by AIDS infections, but it is also evidenced in an upswing in the United States. (Nester, Anderson and Roberts)

The fact that almost a third of world’s population is infected with mycobacterium tuberculosis, and that the disease kill over 2 million individuals each year demonstrates how prevalent this disease is.

“Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major global health problem. In 2012, an estimated 8.6 million people developed TB and 1.3 million died from the disease. The number of TB deaths is unacceptably large given that most are preventable,” (WHO). However, even though numbers of those infected are high, the rate of new TB cases is on the decline at roughly 2% per year. The slow decline rate is due to many things including people not being informed about the disease, and improper usage of medicines leading to drug resistant strains of TB.

Tuberculosis (TB) is considered to be a leading cause of infectious lung disease, and considered the foremost cause of death due to a single microorganism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) tuberculosis report, there were around 9.6 million new TB cases emerging and 1.5 million deaths caused by TB in 2014. (1) Among those, almost 95% of the cases and deaths were in developing countries due to poor socioeconomic conditions and limited access to diagnosis and treatment, with India, Indonesia and Nigeria having the largest number of incidence. Furthermore, the number of cases with latent TB, who are asymptomatically infected by MTB, was estimated to include one third of the world population, which corresponds to more than two billions of people. (2) The disease is further complicated by the development of drug resistance, and co-infection with Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which set a huge obstacle for developing a successful TB treatment regimen.

In many cases, Mycobacterium tuberculosis usually develops because of inconsistent consumptions of drugs. Most of the time, most people don’t even know they are infected until symptoms occur because this pathogen is easily transmitted through air exchange (Medline Library, 2005). Although this pathogen usually remains inactive even when it is in the immune system, it becomes

This paper not only aims to provide a comprehensive review about tuberculosis, but also to apply the knowledge that we have obtained to other diseases and to design future directions in approaching our current difficulties against tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is among the fatal diseases that are spread through the air. It’s contagious, meaning that it spreads from one infected individual to another, and at times it spreads very fast. In addition to being contagious, the disease is an opportunist infection as it takes advantage of those with weak defense mechanism, and especially the ones with terminal diseases like HIV and AIDS. Tuberculosis is therefore among the major concerns for the World Health Organization due to its contagious nature (World Health Organization 1).

India, the second most populous country with over 1.31 billion people, has the highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) in the world, accounting for 20% of the global incidence of TB, and an even higher share of global incidence of multi–drug resistant (MDR) TB. With an estimated 2 million new cases of TB and 5, 00,000 TB-related deaths in India annually, those who got diagnosed with different forms of DR-TB were 35,385 cases but only 20,753 people started on multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) treatment in 2013. The National Tuberculosis Program was launched in 1962, but suffered heavily continuing TB led mortality. Acknowledging this reality, a Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) was launched by the Government of India in 1997, however even today it does not comply with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations.