A
new study from Aarhus University Hospital and Aarhus University, Denmark, has
shown that probably 1 in 4 people in the world carry the tuberculosis bacterium
in the body. The disease tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, which
affects more than 10 million people every year, and kills up to 2 million,
making it the most deadly of the infectious diseases.
In
addition, many are infected with the tuberculosis bacterium without having
active disease, which is called latent tuberculosis. This number has so far
been estimated on the basis of assumptions on how many a patient with active
tuberculosis may infect, but there has not been an empirical basis for these
assumptions.
Now,
researchers from Denmark and Sweden have used a new method to describe the
occurrence of latent tuberculosis infection. The researchers have reviewed 88
scientific studies from 36 different countries, and on the basis of this
epidemiological evidence they have estimated a prevalence also in those
countries where no studies are available, additionally they have calculated the
approximate total global prevalence.
The
study emphasizes that it will be extremely difficult to reach the goal of
eliminating tuberculosis by 2035, which is the aim of the WHO. At any rate, the
objective cannot be achieved without treating the large incidence of latent
tuberculosis, since all infected people are at risk of developing active
tuberculosis disease later in life, says Christian Wejse, an infectious disease
specialist at Aarhus University Hospital and Associate Professor at Aarhus
University, Denmark.
It
has previously been estimated that somewhere between one-third and one-fourth
have latent tuberculosis, but the new study, which is based on tests from
351,811 individuals, indicates that it is between one-fifth and one-fourth,
depending on the test method used. The study thus documents a significant
occurrence of tuberculosis infection in the world today, albeit slightly less
than previously thought.
See:
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle, Pharmaceutical Microbiology
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