News

This is a column about tuberculosis (TB), the world's single, most deadly-yet-curable infection that killed one in seven Americans as recently as the 1880s. That said, it was not until 8 decades later that patients who received long courses of treatment were reliably cured. And even though rich countries like ours now have new and better treatments that can vanquish even highly drug-resistant strains of M. tuberculosis, the slow-growing, waxy-coated germ still claimed 1.25 million lives globally in 2023.