Tuberculosis, commonly abbreviated as TB, may be on its way to becoming a global crisis, according to the United Nations. The deadly disease once again claimed its spot as the number one infectious killer globally in October of 2022, overtaking Covid-19, AFP reported. While progress was being made against the disease, the arrival of Covid in 2020 was a setback that caused cases to swell for the first time in a decade. “We went from what I honestly consider to be unbelievably slow progress, but at least progress, to a reversal," Mel Spigelman, president of the non-profit TB Alliance, told AFP in 2022.
TB is a highly contagious disease that“knows no borders,” Dr. Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the U.N.-hosted organization Stop TB Partnership, told Time. “So long as you breathe, you can still catch TB.” While antibiotics were developed to fight the disease, new strains of drug-resistant TB have evolved, causing higher rates of mortality. Approximately 3.6% of today’s new tuberculosis cases are resistant to multiple TB drugs. “There’s no biological reason that multi-drug-resistant TB can't acquire what it takes to transmit easily,” David Bishai, the director of the school of public health at the University of Hong Kong, told Time. “And so this does represent a pandemic threat.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Ozempic can curb alcohol cravings, study findsSpeed read Weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy may also be helpful in limiting alcohol consumption
-
Oysters could help combat antibiotic resistanceUnder the radar The mollusk shows infection-fighting abilities
-
How Trump's executive orders are threatening scientific researchIn the spotlight Agencies are purging important health information
-
New form of H5N1 bird flu found in US dairy cowsSpeed Read This new form of bird flu is different from the version that spread through herds in the last year
-
Microplastics accumulating in human brains, study findsSpeed Read The amount of tiny plastic particles found in human brains increased dramatically from 2016 to 2024
-
Study finds possible alternative abortion pillSpeed Read An emergency contraception (morning-after) pill called Ella could be an alternative to mifepristone for abortions
-
Why is the FDA slow to ban food additives?Today's big question A legal loophole lets things slide
-
Is this the end of cigarettes?Today's Big Question An FDA rule targets nicotine addiction
