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Henry P. Godfrey, Gary P. Wormser, Tuberculosis: The Microbe Host Interface Edited by Larry S. Schlesinger and Lucy E. DesJardin Wymondham, Norfolk, U.K.: Horizon Bioscience, 2004. 281 pp., illustrated. $149.00 (cloth), Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 40, Issue 4, 15 February 2005, Pages 638–639, https://doi.org/10.1086/427219
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I've got that old TB, I can't eat a bit I've got that old TB, I can't eat a bit Got me worried so, I can't even sleep at night I've got the TB blues. Jimmy Rogers
Tuberculosis remains a serious public health problem in the United States and other countries, even though its incidence here has ebbed since its most recent peak in the early 1990s. It has been estimated by the World Health Organization that there were 9 million cases of tuberculosis and 2 million deaths from this disease worldwide in 2002, with ∼2 billion latently infected people at risk for future development of active disease. Although the etiologic agent of tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has been known for >120 years, there are still major gaps in our understanding of the mechanisms by which infection leads to disease. Increased resources and research focused on tuberculosis since the 1980s have resulted in an influx of scientists into the field and a massive increase in information regarding the molecular genetics of mycobacteria, new models for studying the mechanisms of innate and acquired immunity to M. tuberculosis after primary exposure of the host to the bacterium, and identification of possible new therapeutic and vaccine targets. In contrast, progress in the understanding of latent mycobacterial infection and reactivation disease has been hindered by the complexity of host-mycobacteria interactions and a lack of suitable in vitro and in vivo model systems for their analysis.
