Tuberculosis Surpasses COVID-19 as Most Deadly Infectious Disease

Written by Epoch Times on November 19, 2023. Posted in Current News

As cases of the COVID-19 virus and related deaths dwindle, tuberculosis, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has reclaimed its spot as the deadliest infectious disease.

TB is particularly endemic to eight countries, namely Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Over two-thirds of the world’s TB sufferers are from these countries.

Commonalities among these eight countries are overcrowding, poverty, and malnutrition, Dr. Vinod Kumar, director of Institute of Thoracic Medicine at Madras Medical College, wrote to The Epoch Times.

Tuberculosis is transmitted through the air by someone with an active TB infection in their lungs or throat. This can occur when the person coughs, speaks, or sneezes.

Overcrowded conditions are often damp, dirty, dark, and poorly ventilated. These places promote TB persistence since TB bacteria can be killed by sunlight, and exposure to sunlight also increases immunity.

Traditionally, tuberculosis diagnosis involves a series of steps. The first steps are a review of medical history, a physical examination, and an X-ray of the lungs.

However, patients need a laboratory test to confirm a TB diagnosis and exclude other lung diseases.

In the United States, where infections are less common, TB is often first tested by doing a skin or blood test. These tests detect latent tuberculosis bacteria. However, a positive result only indicates a prior infection; subsequent tests are needed to check if the infection is active.

“DNA-based technologies have flooded the market, but unfortunately, in resource-poor countries, the high cost of such diagnosis becomes an impediment,” Mr. Hasnain wrote, adding that diagnosis made through the microscope may be necessary due to its affordability.

The most common treatment for infectious TB is isoniazid INH in combination with three other drugs: rifampin, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol. However, this combination can have side effects of fatigue, jaundice, nausea, and weakness. It is common for patients to abandon the treatment due to these side effects or once they start feeling better.

The infection may then return with drug-resistant TB bacteria. In such a case, more prolonged treatment with another combination of antibiotics—namely, fluoroquinolones, bedaquiline, and linezolid—would be required for nine months to two years.

As COVID-19 progresses to the endemic stage, TB cases are expected to continue to rise.

Mr. Hasnain proposed that health care should conduct timely screening for TB and include better drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics. He added that multinational corporations are not interested in these responses due to estimated poor investment returns.

It is unlikely that TB will be given the same attention as COVID-19, according to Dr. Dheda. In contrast to COVID-19, the disease has a long incubation period of up to six months and is a slow-progressing disease, often taking months to years for serious symptoms to manifest.

“It is not as socially and politically alarming as COVID‑19, where symptoms develop over a few days and large numbers of patients present to hospital with acute illness,” he wrote.

Dr. Kumar proposed that work be done to improve a person’s own immunity. “This can be done only if the social aspects of TB causation, like poverty, overcrowding, [and] malnutrition, are addressed,” he wrote.

Source: Epoch Times

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