Tuberculosis, once called consumption is a contagious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The cause of this disease has been known only from the nineteenth century, although, according to the Pasteur Institute, the bacilli of tuberculosis exists since three million years. The original strain would have appeared in East Africa, considered the cradle of humanity. The disease is therefore as old as humanity.
TB has been isolated from other lung diseases by Laennec in 1819. In 1865, Dr. J.-A. Villemin proved the transmission of tuberculosis and said that this disease, such hitherto unknown, was due to a microbe undetectable at this time.
Following the work of Pasteur, is a doctor of Silesia, Robert Koch, who discovered the bacillus in 1882. Already, tuberculosis was the cause of one death out of seven.
General symptoms of TB include fever Vespers, asthenia, weight loss, anorexia and night sweats.
Pulmonary tuberculosis (consumption) is by far the most common, but there is bone damage, kidney, intestine, skin (tuberculomas), etc.. Cough, expectoration, impaired general condition, acute respiratory failure and, more rarely, pleurisy are the physical manifestations.
In 2004 it was estimated that nearly 9 million new cases worldwide, causing no less than one million deaths. The economic decline and increasing insecurity are known to cause the spread of tuberculosis.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are in the world newly infected with TB bacilli every second and the third of the world population is currently infected, and 5 to 10% of those infected (uninfected HIV) become sick or develop contagious during their existence.
Fortunately, resistance to conventional drugs is rare.
22 avril 2010
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