Tuberculosis or just known as TB has been around for what seems like forever. It is really one of the only disease or plagues that was around with the mummies. It is said that disease Mycobacterium Tuberculosis originated roughly 20,000-15,000 years ago. It kept growing and growing hitting different areas of the world. But TB really has a strong impact in the poorer less sanitized parts of the world. We could see this in the 19th century with immigration and such when it was very deadly and spreading like a tsunami. Places with high populations and very poor sanitary conditions make up the perfect conditions for TB to be around and spread. We saw this with the U.S. tenements because those that immigrated here lived in filthy housing. It was damp, poorly lit; roughly 18,000 people had homes that had mud floors at the time. There were no windows or ventilation in these houses so people would just inhale TB and never get real good fresh air. Then it didn’t help that majority of those immigrants at the time didn’t have better jobs either. Their work environment was also very nasty and that would cause them to bring home more germs and such. TB was able to spread in the U.S. very easily with all the immigration. The poverty was very high amongst the immigrants so good living conditions weren’t in the picture but also they weren’t able to be checked on by the best doctors and then they weren’t really educated properly on what was happening and how to potentially prevent TB from spreading. Also with the poverty we see malnourishment, people couldn’t eat that much causing them to be small and weak and not have a strong enough immune system to fight of TB. That weak immune system is also seen with things like HIV. People with HIV ran higher risks for catching TB because their immune systems are already weak. This is seen today as well as those with HIV still have a higher chance of catching it. Also those that have HIV and TB have a higher chance to die.
TB is also a hard disease to get rid of because there have been multiple kinds of TB that become immune to the medicine making it resistant. Some of the factors include those that stop taking the drugs to soon or not taking the drugs right allow for the TB to become strong and immune to the medicine. Then that type of TB gets spread to others making it hard to fight against. The drugs cause people to hurt though they do not necessarily make you feel a lot better. They break down the body and you are weak and hurt and that is what normally drives people to get off the drugs. To be MDR-TB or Multidrug-Resistant TB the bacteria must be resistant to the drugs isoniazid and rifampin, which are the two most powerful TB drugs when fighting it off and killing it. Then for the XDR-TB or Extensively Drug-Resistant TB it most is immune to those two as well as any fluoroquinolone or one of the three shots you get. Like that one sounds it is the most deadly because there is greatly higher chance to not get rid of this type of TB bacteria.
It is very important to diagnose and properly treat TB because the earlier you can stop it the more likely it is to not spread amongst those around you and then they can start giving you the medicine early so it can be killed faster before it can become immune to certain drugs. But if not properly done, that’s were we can see the bacteria grow and become untreatable and then spread to others and eventually lead to death of the patient.