Tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) by Zane Alexander Rossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y en-us 2023-03-13 20:59:18 UTC 2023-04-27 00:23:37 UTC hello@padlet.com Tuberculosis- 3/13/2023 zanearossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2515050724 Tuberculosis is a disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tubercuosis (MTB). It is an extremely historically relevant disease, and is incredibly common. It was once widely known as "consumption."
 ]]> 2023-03-13 21:07:26 UTC https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2515050724 Tuberculosis Origins- 3/22/2023 zanearossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2528076578 Tuberculosis is an incredibly old disease. Its exact origins are unknown, but it is suspected that it as at least 9000 years old (CDC 2016). Evidence of TB infection has been found in Egyptian mummies as old as 2400 BCE, and records of TB infection have been traced to India and China dating back between 3300 and 2300 years ago (Barberis, et. al. 2017). Tuberculosis has been well-known for the vast majority of humanity's written history, but definitely emerged in Eurasia, likely somewhere in East Africa (Daniel 2006).

Tuberculosis is caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis (CDC). It's suspected that tuberculosis's ancestor's evolved from or were closely related to Mycobacterium Bovis, a similar bacteria that causes infection in cattle (Wirth, et. al. 2008). Some theories place the emergence of tuberculosis around the same time as the domestication of animals (Wirth, et. al. 2008). This would mean that tuberculosis could have originally had a zoonotic origin. A zoonotic disease is a disease that is passed from animals to humans.

Nowadays, Tuberculosis is spread between humans through the air (CDC). This means that it is an airborne disease. It is an obligate parasite, meaning it requires a human host to live and reproduce. Further, Tuberculosis is an endemic disease in many parts of the world, meaning that it regularly occurring. In the past, Tuberculosis was also an epidemic. In the 18th and 19th centuries the tuberculosis epidemic was one of the leading causes of death in Europe, the Americas, and Asia (Barberis, et. al. 2017). An epidemic is the widespread occurance of a disease in a specific area at a specific time. While there are treatments for Tuberculosis infections nowadays, it is still a highly infectious disease that affects many people every year (CDC).


Works Cited:

Barberis, I., Bragazzi, N. L., Galluzzo, L., & Martini, M. (2017). The history of tuberculosis: from the first historical records to the isolation of Koch's bacillus. Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene, 58(1), E9–E12.

CDC. (2016, March 20). Tuberculosis. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/default.htm

Daniel, T. M. (2006). The history of tuberculosis. Respiratory Medicine, 100(11), 1862–1870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2006.08.006

Wirth, T., Hildebrand, F., Allix-Béguec, C., Wölbeling, F., Kubica, T., Kremer, K., van Soolingen, D., Rüsch-Gerdes, S., Locht, C., Brisse, S., Meyer, A., Supply, P., & Niemann, S. (2008). Origin, spread and demography of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. PLoS pathogens, 4(9), e1000160. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000160 ]]> 2023-03-23 01:57:51 UTC https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2528076578 Tuberculosis Disease Spread- 3/30/3023 zanearossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2538986683 Tuberculosis is nowadays understood to be a disease which is found all over the globe as both regular and endemic. Because Tuberculosis is such an old disease, this reality of continual and regular TB infection has been the norm for the majority of written history. The first major "spread" of the disease out of Eurasia was to the Americas. The exact date of this spread is unknown, but it's theorized that it was brought zoonotically via seal migration from Africa to South America (Wirth et. al. 2008). A second colonization of the Americas occurred with the beginning of European colonization starting in the 1400s. As European imperial powers expanded their empires their people came with many diseases. European colonization of much of the global south spread the disease to parts of the globe that had little or no outside contact, such as to islands in the Pacific (Wirth et. al. 2008).

It's nearly impossible to estimate how many people have ever been infected with or died from Tuberculosis. Breakout Tuberculosis pandemics during the 1800s made the disease so common that "consumption" became inextricably tied to low social status in many parts of Europe and North America (Daniel 2006). In order to get a more accurate picture of the breadth and spread of Tuberculosis today, it's useful to look at yearly infection and death statistics. The WHO reported that in 2021, 10.6 million people became infected with Tuberculosis, and 1.6 million died from their infections (WHO 2022). On top of this, approximately 2 billion of the world's 8 billion people are colonized with Mycobacterium tuberculosis but most of them have latent TB infections, meaning that the pathogen hasn't caused any disease yet (WHO 2022). Tuberculosis has remained the most deadly infectious disease in the world, even with the COVID 19 Pandemic causing disruptions in reporting and also killing a great number of people (ECDC 2022). It has especially high co-infection with HIV, with those infected with HIV being at incredibly great risk of contracting and dying from Tuberculosis (ECDC 2022).

Tuberculosis most commonly affects poorer countries in the global south more drastically (CDC 2016). The above map (Brunette et. al. 2020) shows where the highest incidences of tuberculosis are. The disparity in infection and also in treatment is due primarily to global economic inequalities. Countries with lower GDPs and lower average income face significantly higher difficulty combating the spread of disease (CDC 2016). It has especially high co-infection with HIV, with those infected with HIV being at incredibly great risk of contracting and dying from Tuberculosis (ECDC 2022). While in much of the global North the threat of tuberculosis seems somewhat distant and unlikely, this ancient disease is still highly infectious and highly deadly.

Works Cited:

Brunette, G. W., Nemhauser, J. B., Goswami, N. D., & LoBue, P. A. (2020). Travel Related Infectious Diseases- Tuberculosis. In CDC yellow book 2020: Health Information for International Travel. essay, Oxford University Press.

CDC. (2016, March 20). Tuberculosis. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/default.htm

Daniel, T. M. (2006). The history of tuberculosis. Respiratory Medicine, 100(11), 1862–1870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2006.08.006

ECDC. (2022, March 24). Tuberculosis remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide, warns New report. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/tuberculosis-remains-one-deadliest-infectious-diseases-worldwide-warns-new-report

WHO. (2022, October 27). Tuberculosis (TB) Fact Sheet. World Health Organization. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis

Wirth, T., Hildebrand, F., Allix-Béguec, C., Wölbeling, F., Kubica, T., Kremer, K., van Soolingen, D., Rüsch-Gerdes, S., Locht, C., Brisse, S., Meyer, A., Supply, P., & Niemann, S. (2008). Origin, spread and demography of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. PLoS pathogens, 4(9), e1000160. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000160  ]]> 2023-03-30 21:49:30 UTC https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2538986683 Tuberculosis Virulence - 4/5/2023 zanearossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2545479690 Tuberculosis is known as a particularly deadly disease, and for this post I'm going to focus on Pulmonary Tuberculosis because it is by far the most common type nowadays. As a deadly disease, Tuberculosis has a fairly high virulence. The virulence of a microorganism simply describes how much damage it does to its host.

Understanding the virulence of tuberculosis is somewhat difficult because it doesn't exhibit virulent factors like many other diseases do. Tuberculosis generally kills a host through damage to the lungs and eventual suffocation due to anoxia (Smith 2003). In many cases, the actual damage done by a tuberculosis infection is due primary to the body's inflammatory response, not due to toxins or physical damage from the bacteria (Smith 2003). Thus, the factors that influence the virulence of tuberculosis tend to be aspects of the infection that prompt the body's immune system to do things like destroy tissue or trigger apoptosis in surrounding cells (Smith 2003). Clinical studies have identified multiple factors that contribute to this, from differences in cell wall proteins on the MBT bacillus to factors influencing the synthesis of complex lipids (Forrellad 2013). Tuberculosis specifically targets immune cells (macrophages) in order to infect them and utilize them for replication and eventual re-release back into the host's body (Cambier 2014). The graphic above depicts this process, which is fairly unique among infectious diseases.

Thus, we know that there's definitely some variance in the virulence of the disease and microorganism. However, over time it's very likely that the virulence of tuberculosis has stayed fairly constant, especially considering that the disease is so old and has had so long to stabilize at a virulence that balances host die-off with disease spread. Tuberculosis has co-evolved with humans to utilize the immune system itself to replicate and spread (Cambier 2014). Researchers have described tuberculosis as an example of "a near-perfect paradigm of a host-pathogen relationship," meaning that its virulence and pathogenesis has likely been fairly stable for many thousands of years now, especially considering that it is still endemic to much of the world today (Cambier 2014).

But how virulent is tuberculosis and how could we even measure that? We know that tuberculosis is the most deadly infectious disease in the world, even with advances in antibiotics which have allowed for effective treatment of the disease (ECDC 2022). Using that metric, we can say that tuberculosis must be more virulent than most diseases, as it is killing off more people. This can be somewhat misleading, though, as tuberculosis infections tend to last a long time-- it takes around 6 months with constant medication to kill off active tuberculosis infections (CDC 2016). It takes a little less time to do so for a latent infection (CDC 2016). Without treatment, it takes an active TB infection about 20 days to kill someone, which isn't a long time but it's certainly more time than other diseases (CDC 2016). From this information we can infer that perhaps overall, tuberculosis ends up doing much more damage than other diseases do. However, it may not be doing that damage as quickly or acutely as other diseases. Instead, tuberculosis does gradual damage to a host over time, and its headiness against immune response and medical intervention means that it doesn't need to act any faster or do damage at a higher rate.



Works Cited

Cambier, C.J., Falkow S., & Ramakrishnan, L. (2014). Host Evasion and Exploitation Schemes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Cell, 159(7), 1497-1509. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.11.024

CDC. (2016, March 20). Tuberculosis. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/default.htm

ECDC. (2022, March 24). Tuberculosis remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide, warns New report. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/tuberculosis-remains-one-deadliest-infectious-diseases-worldwide-warns-new-report

Forrellad, M. A., Klepp, L. I., Gioffré, A., Sabio y García, J., Morbidoni, H. R., de la Paz Santangelo, M., Cataldi, A. A., & Bigi, F. (2013). Virulence factors of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. Virulence, 4(1), 3–66. https://doi.org/10.4161/viru.22329

Smith I. (2003). Mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogenesis and molecular determinants of virulence. Clinical microbiology reviews, 16(3), 463–496. https://doi.org/10.1128/CMR.16.3.463-496.2003 


]]> 2023-04-05 21:49:37 UTC https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2545479690 Tuberculosis Medical Advances- 4/12/2023 zanearossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2552263938 People have been trying to treat tuberculosis for as long or longer than we've been writing things down. The earliest records of tuberculosis we have give little insight into how people treated the disease beyond simply dying. We know that ancient and classical people from the Americas to Europe to Asia acknowledged the existence of the disease and recognized it as deadly (Barberis 2017). One of the first records of tuberculosis treatments comes from Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius's physician, Clarissimus Galen, who "recommended fresh air, milk, and sea voyages" to treat the disease (Barberis 2017). As time went on, understandings and treatment option for tuberculosis changed. During the middle ages in Europe, the disease came to be known as the "King's Evil" (Barberis 2017). Treatment for the King's Evil primarily consisted of the "kings touch," whereby thousands of people infected with the disease would gather outside their monarch's residences to be cured by their touch (Daniel 2006). Another notable episode in tuberculosis treatment came in 1363 when a surgeon by the name of Guy de Chauliac proposed surgical removal of lymph glands in the neck as a treatment for the King's Evil (Barberis 2017).
Treatment options began to change somewhat as the world came into the early modern era. It was during this time that tuberculosis epidemics began wreaking havoc on Europe, with death rates approaching 800-1000 for every 100,000 people during the early to mid 1800s (Daniel 2006). This death was also divided along class lines, with approximately a third of English working class men dying of TB from 1838-39 and only a sixth of upper class men (Barberis 2017). Treatment options in the form of medication included "cod liver oil, vinegar massages, and inhaling hemlock or turpentine" (CDC 2016). A great deal of research went in to trying to classify different tuberculosis types. This research resulted in the discovery and aknowledgement that TB was a spreadable and potentially curable disease (Barberis 2017). When Robert Koch isolated Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1882, this theory was all but proven. Despite these scientific achievements, perhaps the greatest breakthrough in TB treatment in the late 1800s was the development of sanatoriums. As germ theory became more and more accepted, the need to isolate infected people became clearer. From 1904 to 1953 the number of sanatoriums specifically for TB patients increased from 115 to 839 (CDC 2016). This method of isolation proved effective at stemming the epidemic spread of TB, but real change in combating TB came with the development of the first antibiotics.
Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, and this discovery spawned a revolution in disease treatment (Davis 2006). Antibiotic treatments specifically for Tuberculosis were developed in 1943 when scientists created Streptomycin (CDC 2016). This and other like drugs became the primary basis for tuberculosis treatment, and have continued to prove effective at fighting drug-vulnerable TB. In the 1930s the TB skin test was developed by Florence Seinbert, which is also still used today (CDC 2016). Nowadays the primary treatment regimen for TB disease is the usage of 4 antibiotics: Rifampin, Isoniazid, Pyrazinamide and Ethambutol (Bradley 2020). We diagnose TB using skin tests, blood tests, and x-rays to check the accumulation of tubercles in the lungs (CDC 2016). There have been historical attempts to develop a vaccine for TB, but so far none have been effective (CDC 2016).
Tuberculosis is a disease whose treatment has evolved as human technology has evolved. Early healthcare experts had to use what information they had, and recommended treatments that we would probably agree were not very effective. As time went on, research into diseases like TB became especially important as epidemics were killing off large portions of the population. Medical advances like the development of germ theory led to the creation of sanatoriums for the isolation of infected individuals. The actual "discovery" of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was also incredibly important as it confirmed that the disease was caused by a microorganism. As medical technology has advanced, treatments for tuberculosis have improved. The invention of antibiotics was perhaps the most important innovation, as it allowed for the creation of drugs that would kill of TB before it killed the host. The development of accurate tests like the skin test and blood tests was also imperative for finding TB before it killed off a host. Moreover, the development of modern medical equipment like x-ray machines made diagnosis even easier. Many of the technologies used to treat TB have been available for a long time here in the United States. Widespread access to antibiotics, testing equipment, and laboratories has become commonplace in the global north. The widespread incidence of TB in the global south has very little to do with not understanding the disease and everything to do with a lack of resources and funding. TB is a treatable, survivable disease if caught early and treated adequately. Despite thousands of years of medical advancement, tuberculosis is still the deadliest disease in the world. This isn't due to a lack of technology or understanding, but rather a lack of care and aid for those who need what are considered basic healthcare provisions here in the United States and elsewhere.


Works Cited:

Barberis, I., Bragazzi, N. L., Galluzzo, L., & Martini, M. (2017). The history of tuberculosis: from the first historical records to the isolation of Koch's bacillus. Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene, 58(1), E9–E12.

Bradley, M. S., & Jackson, C. (2020, April 20). Tuberculosis series: Treatment. EthnoMed. Retrieved April 12, 2023

CDC. (2016, March 20). Tuberculosis. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/default.htm

Daniel, T. M. (2006). The history of tuberculosis. Respiratory Medicine, 100(11), 1862–1870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2006.08.006 ]]> 2023-04-13 00:19:59 UTC https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2552263938 Tuberculosis Leadership Response- 4/19/2023 zanearossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2560905339 Because Tuberculosis has been around for such a long time, responses to the disease have evolved as humanity has evolved. Initially, there was very little that could be offered by governments or authority figures in the way of advice for combating tuberculosis. Sometimes, authority figures would recommend particular combinations of foods or activities to help alleviate symptoms (Barberis 2017). Notably, in the European Middle Ages, people believed that Kings could cure the disease by simply touching their subjects (Daniel 2006). However, before the advent of the understanding that diseases can be spread from person to person, there was basically nothing an authority figure could suggest that would even have a chance of helping.

It wasn't until the emergence of germ theory and the isolation of the bacteria that causes tuberculosis that authority figures could have even had a chance to offer advice or guidance that would help (Barberis 2017). Notable early responses to the major tuberculosis pandemics in England were extremely lacking. Tuberculosis was seen as a result of poor hygiene and social status, so it was largely ignored by the authorities (CDC 2016). It wasn't until the death rates started skyrocketing and having major impacts on society at large that governments and health authorities looked into actual solutions for the disease.

The most notable new innovation in treatment that the tuberculosis pandemics of the 19th and early 20th centuries created were Sanatoriums. Sanatoriums were isolated treatment centers where those ill with TB disease would go to receive treatment (and, unfortunately, often die) (CDC 2016). The main innovative effect of the implementation of Sanatoriums was forced quarantine of sick individuals. Tuberculosis was so deadly for such a long time mainly because it could spread quickly through the community. By forcing sick individuals to isolate away from the rest of the population, leaders were able to reduce the incidence of the disease (Daniel, 2006). In the modern day, we have also seen some innovations in the response to tuberculosis. Namely, global responses to disease outbreaks. Organizations like the WHO have allowed governments to coordinate their responses to tuberculosis outbreaks by sending aid in the form of medication to countries with high incidences of the disease (CDC 2016). The ability for countries to share their disease-fighting resources has been a great boon to being able to fight tuberculosis, but in many cases this approach isn't taken far enough.

On the whole, leadership responses to tuberculosis have been varied over time in terms of their acceptability and efficacy. For the majority of human history, no one knew enough about the disease to give good enough advice. I don't think it's fair to fault governments and authority figures of old for not knowing how to respond to the disease. It's once germ theory and other advances in medical science proved that Tuberculosis was a spreadable disease that leadership responses began to falter. It took way too long for governments in Europe and the Americas to institute quarantining regimes in the form of Sanatorium construction. This was mainly because the disease was affecting only poorer people, with it noted that death rates were almost 2x as high for working class individuals as for upper-class individuals in England (Barberis 2017). I think we have a similar problem in the modern day as well. Global organizations like the WHO are capable of retroactively responding to disease outbreaks all over the world. However, I think that many people and leaders in the countries that don't have regular tuberculosis outbreaks simply don't care about the people in countries where they're common. Nations where tuberculosis is common tend to be poorer, and the global economic and political order requires those nations to stay dependent and poor so that richer nations can exploit them for cheap labor and resources. It's clear that with enough investment into healthcare initiatives, tuberculosis can become an incredibly rare disease, as it is in Europe and the United States. Global leadership continues to fail much of the world by refusing to put forth serious efforts to allow nations in the global south to build their own healthcare systems to combat diseases like tuberculosis. In order for tuberculosis to become less of a threat worldwide, we must see a restructuring of global leadership away from Neo-imperialism.

Works Cited:

Barberis, I., Bragazzi, N. L., Galluzzo, L., & Martini, M. (2017). The history of tuberculosis: from the first historical records to the isolation of Koch's bacillus. Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene, 58(1), E9–E12.

Bradley, M. S., & Jackson, C. (2020, April 20). Tuberculosis series: Treatment. EthnoMed. Retrieved April 12, 2023

CDC. (2016, March 20). Tuberculosis. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/default.htm

Daniel, T. M. (2006). The history of tuberculosis. Respiratory Medicine, 100(11), 1862–1870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2006.08.006  ]]> 2023-04-20 01:14:43 UTC https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2560905339 Tuberculosis- Society Effect (4/26/2023) zanearossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2569480395 Tuberculosis epidemics have been an omnipresent threat in the majority of human societies for the majority of recorded history. For a long time, this threat had a very real impact on people's perception of the world. Much like the Black Plague, Tuberculosis garnered itself a number of names of notoriety over the years. In the Early Modern period, people referred to it as the "white plague," on account of the fact that it tended to turn people's complexions incredibly pale (Daniel 2006). Later on, in the 19th and 20th centuries, it garnered the name "consumption," likely because it appeared to be "consuming" the patient as they coughed up blood and withered away (Barberis 2017). The social impacts of consumption have been long-lasting. For one, the disease was far more common among lower-class individuals (Barberis 2017). This meant that the sickness itself began to be seen as a sign of poor economic standing. This morphed itself into the parallelization of the disease with moral failure and the ever-decreasing quality of life that working class people lived during this time (Daniel 2006). In many ways, the cultural connection between disease and poverty was born during this era with the widespread nature of tuberculosis, and has persisted to this day. There's a part of the dominant global culture that is unwilling to heal many of the sick simply because they are poor or because they can't pay for it themselves. We can see this trend continuing with tuberculosis specifically, as despite being a curable disease that we know a great deal about, it is still the most deadly infectious disease in the world (ECDC 2022).

Societal behaviors did change as the threat of tuberculosis became more pronounced. Specifically, once scientists discovered and confirmed that it was spread via an infectious agent from person-to-person, isolation of TB patients became more commonplace. In some instances this took the form of sanatoriums: live-in care facilities where TB patients were often forced to either die isolated from the rest of society or recover from their disease (CDC 2016). Another aspect of this new trend in isolating the diseased came in the form of "TB Colonies," which were essentially settlements created for TB patients to be resigned to (WHO 2022). Many of these colonies were in the arid west, as there was a popular belief that the dry air would be good for TB patients' health. Finally, understanding that TB was spreadable from person-to-person only reinforced classist ideas about working-class people in the eyes of the upper class. Working class people were seen not just as dirty but diseased, and association with them was now directly linked in the minds of many to tuberculosis. In many ways, tuberculosis further increased the divide between the rich in the poor in a very material way.

Lessons learned about quarantine and isolation of sick people during tuberculosis pandemics would go on to be the basis for disease spread mitigation for decades to come. As science became more and more able to identify tuberculosis in people, health officials were able to mandate their isolation from the rest of the population to prevent disease spread (CDC 2016). This has proven to be an effective way to control outbreaks of Tuberculosis, and the logic behind this kind of disease control has been applied to many other diseases, such as COVID 19 (ECDC 2022). Unfortunately, tuberculosis hasn't taught enough people a very important lesson about the health of all people. If more resources were devoted to stemming disease spread in the places where tuberculosis kills millions each year, we would see an increase in quality of life across the world. Tuberculosis epidemics in the 19th century reveal just how damaging profit-driven healthcare can be in leaving vast portions of the population behind. The entire global healthcare system needs to move away from profit and toward care as a goal above all else.


Works Cited:

Barberis, I., Bragazzi, N. L., Galluzzo, L., & Martini, M. (2017). The history of tuberculosis: from the first historical records to the isolation of Koch's bacillus. Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene, 58(1), E9–E12.

CDC. (2016, March 20). Tuberculosis. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/default.htm

Daniel, T. M. (2006). The history of tuberculosis. Respiratory Medicine, 100(11), 1862–1870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2006.08.006   

ECDC. (2022, March 24). Tuberculosis remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide, warns New report. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/tuberculosis-remains-one-deadliest-infectious-diseases-worldwide-warns-new-report

WHO. (2022, October 27). Tuberculosis (TB) Fact Sheet. World Health Organization. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis ]]> 2023-04-27 00:09:40 UTC https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2569480395 Padlet Final Reflection (4/26/2023) zanearossi https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2569495603 I did my padlet project on tuberculosis, partially because I knew it was an incredibly historical disease, and also because I knew it was the deadliest infectious agent year-over-year. I think the most revealing aspect of tuberculosis that I learned was just how essential tuberculosis pandemics in the 19th and 20th centuries were for establishing much of our modern understanding of disease study and control. Tuberculosis was one of the first diseases to be isolated and identified as an infectious agent, and the severity and widespread nature of tuberculosis led to the creation of systems to isolate infected people to stem the spread of the disease. We see the threads that tuberculosis started in all aspects of epidemiology today. 

Tuberculosis is an old disease, it's so old that it's incredibly difficult for us to pinpoint exactly where it started. Tuberculosis is also a disease that we understand incredibly well, likely due to the fact that it's so old. It can be treated with antibiotics (we have even developed antibiotics specifically targeted against tuberculosis), it can be easily tested for, and resistant strains are well-known and fairly rare. Finally, we know that tuberculosis has an "active" and "latent" stage of infection, and we can test/treat based on the level of disease activity we find. What I found so surprising is just how common it still is given that we have every tool available to treat it. As I did more research, I found that tuberculosis is only common in poorer nations. At this point, it all fell into place for me. Tuberculosis could be controlled on an international level, but it seems that no one is interested in providing the funding and resources necessary to save all of those lives. 

I came across a lot of discussion of tuberculosis's related diseases and how studying them can help us understand more about tuberculosis itself. I think that a section about similar diseases or ancestral diseases to our disease of choice would be an interesting addition to this project. Maybe we could use that space to focus on what "kind" of bacterium or virus we were studying. We could also talk about possible zoonotic origins of the disease, crossover events, etc to kind of bring in some more of the class material into this project as well. I think that this addition would really help in thinking about diseases as evolutionary, mutable, changing organisms rather than static things that humans deal with.
]]> 2023-04-27 00:23:26 UTC https://padlet.com/zanearossi/ro7yk1bh2m4bu97y/wish/2569495603