Tuberculosis Death Sentence

The New York Times is 'dead on' in more ways than one.

Tuberculosis is outrunning us. In the last few months, 53 patients in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal were found to have a form of the disease resistant to enough existing drugs that it is virtually incurable. All but one of those patients have died. Airborne and deadly, extensively drug-resistant TB is a nightmare disease. It has been found worldwide, including in the United States.

Most people in the USA do not realize that infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the one of the top killers of people worldwide. We don't have much TB in the USA so why should we worry. And even if I become infected, there are drugs to cure me.

The development of antibiotics had allowed wealthy nations to dismiss TB as a disease of the past. But H.I.V. and AIDS have changed that calculus. In Africa, active TB cases are rising by 4 percent a year, largely because H.I.V. activates latent TB infection.

This is definitely no longer the case and none of us are safe now. Drug resistant TB from KwaZulu-Natal can easily make its way to the USA. But because there is not much TB in the USA there is also not much money being spent on TB research. Thankfully, people like Bill Gates are willing to fund clinical TB research. But it is the responsibility of the US government to fund the basic research that allows us to better understand the disease and the immune responses to it. That is not being done and we don't do it, who will?