3. Plaguing humanity since prehistoric times, tuberculosis continues to inflict suffering as the infection grows resistant to modern medicine and refuses to be consigned to history
Tuberculosis, commonly abbreviated to TB, is a bacterial infection that attacks the lungs. With symptoms including the chronic coughing of blood, fevers, and organ failure, if left untreated TB is highly fatal, killing in approximately half of active cases. Spreading through the air on fluid residue expelled from the human body, it is estimated that as many as one-quarter of the human population is currently infected with latent forms of TB; however, of this sizeable proportion less than 2.5 percent progress to active infections. Dating to at least 17,000 years ago, with evidence of TB found in the remains of ancient bison in Wyoming, it remains one of the oldest still existing infections in the world.
The isolation of TB in 1882 would win Robert Kock the Nobel Prize in Medicine, although it would take until 1921 for a vaccine to be first administered. In 1918, an estimated one in six deaths in France was a product of TB, a figure that substantially declined during the mid-20th century. By the 1950s, mortality rates had decreased by more than 90 percent in Europe. Despite this considerable progress, TB persists in the developing world and continues to affect the developed more than commonly recognized. In 2014, in the United States, nearly 10,000 cases were reported, with 555 deaths resulting from the condition in 2013. Worldwide, between two to three million succumb each year, with the bacteria growing ever resistant to antibiotic treatments.
Also Read: How Tuberculosis Became the Victorian Standard of Beauty.