Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that affects the lungs usually. Compared with every other diseases caused by a single infectious agent, tuberculosis is the second biggest killer worldwide.
In 2015, 1.8 million people died from the disease, with 10.4 million falling ill.
Both in the 18th and 19th centuries, a tuberculosis epidemic rampaged all over Europe and North America, before the German microbiologist Robert Kock discovered the microbial causes of tuberculosis in 1882.
Following Koch’s discovery, the development of vaccines and effective drug treatment led to the belief that the disease was almost defeated. Indeed, at one point, the UN (United Nations), predicted that TB (shortened term for tuberculosis) would be eliminated worldwide by 2025.
However, in the mid-1980s, TB cases started to rise worldwide, so much so, that back in 1993, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that TB was a global emergency, the first time that a disease had been labeled as such.
