Tuberculosis, commonly referred to as TB, has been a major global health problem for hundreds of years. In the 18th and 19th centuries, tuberculosis was called the white plague and the “Captain of death” because in several countries in Europe and the US, it was responsible for more than 20% of all deaths. Even today, out of all infectious agents, tuberculosis remains the biggest killer, surpassing even HIV and Malaria. According to an estimate,e around 2 million people die every year because of this deadly infection.
According to the WHO, one-third of the world’s population is infected with Tuberculosis. In most of these infected people, the TB infection remains in its latent state. But this latent infection can emerge decades later to become an active disease and can cause serious illness in the infected person. Once detected, active disease requires months of multidrug chemotherapy to cure. Not only this, but the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria is a constant threat to public health.
