Before COVID, TB was the world's worst pathogen. It's still a 'monster' killer
Until the emergence of COVID-19, tuberculosis was the deadliest infectious disease in the world. How did it evolve from a terrible disease to a largely controlled one to the horrific plague it is now?
That's the question that science journalist Vidya Krishnan explores in her new book, Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History, released this month. It traces the spread of TB from the U.S. and Europe in the 19th century to lower-income countries — including Krishnan's country of India — where it continues to flourish today.
The answer, she finds, has a lot to do with lack of treatment, overtreatmentbecome available in lower-income nations, they were often overused. With antibiotic overuse came antibiotic resistance as pathogens learned to fight off the cures. The result is what Krishnan calls a "monster" version of the disease known as multidrug-resistant TB.
