The White House has a plan to combat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, but it may never get funded.
Posted: 10/23/2015
"Tuberculosis is the disease we thought HIV would be in the '80s. A disease you could get and die from that was aerosolized and spread through the air," Eric Goosby, the U.N. special envoy on tuberculosis, said at a United Nations Foundation briefing in July. "With TB, you can get it standing in a line when you go to the grocery store or standing in line for the movies."
The highly infectious bacteria that cause TB spread in tiny droplets of saliva and mucous that are expelled when an infected person coughs. They can float in the air for hours.
About one-third of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis. The lucky ones have strong enough immune systems to wall off the TB bacteria, forcing it to lie dormant. The unlucky ones -- about 10 percent of those infected -- come down with a wracking cough, overwhelming weakness, weight loss and persistent fatigue.
If left untreated, two-thirds of people with active TB die. It is the No. 2 single-agent infectious killer in the world (behind HIV/AIDS), according to the World Health Organization, and the No. 1 killer of those infected with HIV/AIDS.
Read more: http://www.stumbleupon.com/to/stumble/stumblethru:huffingtonpost.com
No comments:
Post a Comment