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For tens of thousands of years tuberculosis has been humanity’s unwanted companion. Worse still: The latest form—extensively drug-resistant, or XDR, TB—is the most virulent yet of the airborne, organ-ravaging disease.
According to the World Health Organization, TB bacteria infect a third of the Earth’s population. Most infections are latent, but the disease did kill 1.8 million in 2007, a year that saw 9.3 million new cases, most in developing countries. Individuals with HIV are at extra risk.
Tuberculosis can be cured. But lack of access, poor treatment, and misused medication have allowed it to mutate into aggressive strains that can elude a cure. XDR-TB, the nasty newcomer, is rare but so far has outwitted most remedies. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan has said that if left unchecked, it “could take us back to the treatment era that predates the development of antibiotics.” Yet there is a ray of hope: Stepped-up anti-TB efforts around the globe are reducing the disease’s overall prevalence and mortality. —Hannah Bloch
Photo: A mother cradles her TB-stricken son in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng Provincial Hospital in 2008. The boy later died.
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