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    Opinion: The Way The U.S. Beat TB Could Be A Boon In Battling Coronavirus

    Tuberculosis is a dangerous infectious disease. The strategies used by wealthy countries to wipe it out within their borders in the 1950s holds lessons for the world.
    by Salmaan Keshavjee Apr 01, 2020 5 minutes
    A 1960s health poster from the National Tuberculosis Association indicates that TB was still a problem in the U.S. in that decade.

    As the world battles the deadly coronavirus, there is a lot we can learn from one of the great pandemics of recent centuries: tuberculosis.

    Like the bug that has caused the newest global outbreak, TB is spread through the air. Every exhaled breath by a person with the disease can spread the tuberculosis bacteria to new individuals. TB is thought to have killed one billion people between 1800 and 2000. It attacks the human body more slowly than viral diseases like flu or COVID-19, but exacts a great toll. Untreated TB is a death sentence for 80 percent of those who fall ill.

    Although TB still kills 4,000 people every day in poor countries, it largely disappeared in wealthy countries afters the 1950s through a set of tried and tested strategies – which suggest important lessons for how to stop the newest plague.

    Current efforts

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