TUBERCULOSIS
Tuberculosis (TB), an infectious disease, has been present throughout ancient and modern history. TB rates in the United States are on the decline after a resurgence from 1985 to 1992. However, TB continues to be a major killer in much of the world. The implications of this epidemic are global, as travel and migration are now part of everyday life.
Although the cause, diagnosis, and treatment and prevention of TB are known, paradoxically, the disease continues to increase as a public health challenge. Caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB spreads via an airborne route from an infectious person coughing, sneezing, laughing, or singing. The bacteria infect mainly other individuals who have frequent and prolonged contact with a contagious TB case.
HISTORY
TB's existence dates back many centuries. There are references to TB in third-century B.C.E. Chinese and second-century B.C.E. Indian texts; Plato and Hippocrates wrote about it around 400 B.C.E. TB was commonly known as consumption in Europe, a cause of death for hundreds of thousands in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is when TB in close groups was first observed and assumed to have a genetic cause, since it was commonly seen in families.
In 1882 Robert Koch's discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis led to the recognition of TB as an infectious disease. This discovery also led to interventions for interrupting transmission from person-to-person.
Beginning in the late 1880s, TB patients were treated in sanitoria with various modalities, including exposure to fresh air, exercise, and nourishment. About 50 percent of patients recovered or had long-term remission. However, as is known today, their "cure" was not due to the treatments administered but perhaps to self-healing mechanisms.
In the early twentieth century, public health interventions became key in controlling the spread of TB in the cities, where TB was most prevalent. For example, Herman M. Biggs, General Medical Officer of New York City, actively catalogued lists of TB patients and enforced isolation and environmental mechanisms to control TB, including the opening of a TB hospital to quarantine patients. Between 1914 and 1923, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company conducted the "Framingham Tuberculosis Project" using community nurses to visit the homes of its clients to do assessments, teach health practices, and collect data for research and policy-making purposes. The project was in response to a high rate of TB-related mortality among Metropolitan customers. As a result, mortality rates for TB in the Metropolitan pool declined by 68 percent.
Beginning in 1921, the Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG) vaccine was used to prevent TB. Still used in many parts of the world but not in the United States, the vaccine is not effective, except perhaps in infants. The discovery of streptomycin in 1943 brought drug treatment for TB. Between 1943 and 1952, two more TB drugs, para-amino-salicylic acid (PAS) and isoniazid (INH), were discovered. Sanitoria began to close in the early 1970s, as TB could be now be treated on an outpatient basis, as evidenced by success in the decrease in TB rates with combined drug treatment and infection-control mechanisms.
RESURGENCE
By 1985, there were 22,201 cases of TB in the United States, the lowest number recorded since national case reporting began in 1953. However, rates then began to increase, until in 1992 cases peaked at 26,673. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic was a major contributor, as its victims are at higher risk for developing active disease once infected with TB bacteria. Migration from countries with high rates of TB added to the number. Also, improper or inadequate drug treatment for TB has led to drug-resistant strains. Finally, medical education stressed TB to a lesser degree in academic curricula, and funding and interest in TB-control programs had dwindled with decreased cases. Most authorities feel that the latter reason was the most important.
Response to the American TB resurgence resulted in increased funding for TB control programs. This gave greater access to TB treatment through health departments. The health departments were responsible not only for treating cases, but for surveillance, outreach, case management, and treatment for those who had been exposed to infectious TB cases. Directly observed therapy short course (DOTS), the observation of the ingestion of medication, has now become the basis for the worldwide standard of TB care. DOTS includes five elements: government commitment to sustained TB-control activities; case detection and self-reporting to health services; standardized treatment regimen of six to eight months for at least all confirmed infectious cases, with directly observed treatment (DOT) for at least the initial two months; a regular, uninterrupted supply of all essential anti-TB drugs; and a standardized recording and reporting system that allows assessment of treatment results for each patient and of the TB control program overall. DOTS is presently available to 25 percent of the world's TB patients, but its acceptance is slowly increasing. There was also an increase in TB educational interventions via the public health sector and medical schools. New drug trials did not create new drugs but created variations on existing drugs and regimens. TB rates began to decrease again in 1994, and as of 1999, they were at an all-time low of 17,528 cases in the United States. Globally, there are still eight million new cases of TB annually with three million deaths. Clearly, even with the exemplary level of achievement domestically, TB cannot be controlled anywhere unless it is controlled everywhere.
THE FUTURE
Although one of the Healthy People 2010 goals calls for TB elimination from this country, the United States is still far from that goal. Many interventions need to be continued despite falling rates. For other communicable diseases, effective vaccine development and the advent of new drug therapies has been key to disease control approaching elimination. The best course for TB elimination is to develop a vaccine and new drugs while continuing surveillance, treating TB patients who may infect others, treating those who have been infected but are not yet active cases, increasing TB awareness among health professionals, and performing targeted testing for TB infection among high-risk populations. This combination of medical and public health practice can make TB elimination a reality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1995). Self-Study Modules on Tuberculosis. Atlanta, GA: Author.
—— (2000). Core Curriculum on Tuberculosis: What the Clinician Should Know, 4th edition. Atlanta, GA: Author.
Daniel, T. M. (1997). Captain of Death: The Story of Tuberculosis. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
Dublin, L. I. (1952). A Forty-Year Campaign against Tuberculosis: The Contribution of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. New York: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Reichman, L. B. and Tanne J. H. (2001). Time Bomb: The Global Epidemic of Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis. New York: McGraw Hill.
