Tuberculosis And The Hiv / Aid Epidemic

Tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), also known as TB, is a disease spread by respiratory inhalation of droplets that contain the bacteria. Tuberculosis is an ancient disease that has been traced back at least 9000 years. In 1882, Dr. Robert Koch was the first physician to describe Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the germ responsible for tuberculosis. However, treatment that was evidenced based was not put into practice until the 20th century. It is estimated that 2 billion people around the world are infected with the TB bacteria. Approximately 5 to 10 percent of these infected people will actual develop active TB and experience the life-threatening symptoms of the disease. 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

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).

Tuberculosis is a deadly disease that is now affecting our world and the people living in it in a horrible way. Due to many factors such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, and lack of health care, many third world and developing countries have been left very vulnerable to tuberculosis. It is affecting a large part of these countries and is leading them deeper into poverty and sickness. The effort to help these countries against tuberculosis has only been slightly effective against this widespread and destructive disease.

The organism adheres to the epithelial cells in its host by pilli. This opportunistic pathogen can affect people of all ages and specifically targets patients that have immune deficiencies, debilitating diseases, and infants in the NICU. Patients are at greater risk of contracting the organism if they have recently had a surgery, mechanical ventilation, central venous catheter, arterial catheterization, inhalation medication therapy, tracheal tubes, or have low apgar scores. It can cause a variety of diseases and infections such as urinary tract infections, meningitis, pneumonia, respiratory tract infections, keratoconjunctivitis, osteomyelitis, keratitis, endocarditis, cutaneous infections, and endophthalmitis. (Currey,

Tuberculosis, the white plague as used to be called once upon a time is still one of the deadliest bacterial killers affecting almost all parts, all corners of the globe. Though successful anti-tubercular antibiotic regimens and effective vaccine are available for decades and being used in the battle against Koch’s bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of this chronic multi organ granulomatous disease, our strand in the battle continuously seems to be in the losing side. Moreover the increasing prevalence of HIV-AIDS and diabetes mellitus is being proved to be providing predisposition to tuberculosis. As witnessed by the WHO, which has estimated that, in the year 2012, 8.6 million people have developed tuberculosis and 1.3 million have died of the disease including 320000 deaths of HIV-TB co-infected people (Global tuberculosis report 2013. World Health Organization; 2013). Long term antibiotic therapy and that too associated with several side effects and discomforts have diminished patient compliance with the anti-tubercular chemotherapy. This fact in turn has raised the new deadlier MDR-TB and XDR-TB strains. The whole scenario is a matter of panic and questioning the effectiveness of anti-tubercular antibiotics, immunologic efficacy of century old BCG vaccine and all other medical advents.

rarely, can spread through the blood stream and infect the joints, heart valves, or the brain. The

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a pathogen, which its physiology is directly linked to features of tuberculosis that it causes. The crucial feature for a mycobacteria’s survival is its unique cell wall structure. The insoluble cell wall core of MTB is formed by a large variety of lipid-containing molecules, such as mycolic acid, that are covalently attached (6). This hydrophobic cell wall provides a physical protection from the host immune response and serves as a barrier against many toxic insults (2). Further, the complex MTB cell wall is impermeable to both hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules, resulting in inherent resistance of MTB to most common antibiotics (8). Lipoarabinomannan is an antigen on the outside of the organism. This antigen is another important component of the cell wall because it inhibit the fusion of Mycobacterium-containing phagosomes with lysosomal compartments (4). Lipoarabinomannan hinders the fusion of phagosome with lysosome by impairing Ca2+/calmodulin pathway and inactivates macrophages (8). Therefore, this cell-surface component of MTB is able to facilitate the survival of mycrobacteria within macrophages (8). Also, MTB is able to survive the harsh environment of the host tissues by utilizing any available

TB is a major cause of mortality and morbidity globally that boils down to one small, single infection. TB can be classified into 2 stages; Latent TB and Active TB. In Latent TB, the bacteria remain in the body in an inactive or dormant state. A person will not have any symptoms because their immune mechanism has stopped the bacteria from growing. Latent TB can remain in a dormant state for year (Zager et al, 2009). However this disease can easily change to Active TB. This change mainly occurs due to the rapid increase of Mycobacterium TB within an individual when a person becomes ill or their immune system is compromise. Ninety percent of the time, those who are infected with

One of the main reasons why this topic was selected is that the infections caused by the virus are considerably common with some people having outbreaks several times a year. The risks of infection depend on

Often times, people in third world countries face health problems that are not experienced in first and second world countries. Diseases that do not exist in the countries such as the US anymore are still some of the leading problems in poor nations. Professor Susan Craddock from the department of Gender, Woman and Sexuality studies gave a presentation that focused on Tuberculosis, which is falls into a category of diseases called “neglected diseases”. They are called neglected because the development of vaccines and drugs to cure the diseases has decreased to about nothing. The market for these drugs is not lucrative enough for pharmaceutical companies in higher income countries to invest in research. Since the low income countries do not have the resources to carry out research for these drugs the number of neglected disease-related deaths has increased. I found the presentation interesting and enlightening especially because I am interested in the pharmaceutical field. In response to the neglected diseases, different organizations have come together to research and develop vaccines and drugs that can treat these diseases.

Studies from other groups have also associate mycobacterial, a bacterium group that includes the causative agents of leprosy and tuberculosis, and propionibacterial organisms, a bacterium that plays a roll in carbohydrate metabolism, dairy fermentation and skin conditions including acne as possible underlying etiologies of sarcoidosis based on tissue analyses and immunologic responses. Another proposed hypothesis is that sarcoidosis is caused by an active viable replicating infection while other groups contend there is no clinical, pathologic, or microbiologic

The author is stating in this article that society is becoming more concerned towards worldwide epidemics. The writer brings to our attention and talks over the effects of tuberculosis and how they are using giant pouched rats as a secondary source in detecting TB quicker and more reliable than x-rays. The human nature of society currently is turning out to be more compassionate and kindly towards others; at this moment civilization thrives on creating a broader impact to stop diseases that cause chaos in the world today.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is unique and mysterious because of its small genome and physical size. The bacterium contains only 500-2300 Kba in its genome that produces about 700 different proteins. (Emerging infectious

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.