ABSTRACT
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a leading contender for the dubious distinction of being the most important plague of mankind. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in 2003, 8.8 million people developed TB, of whom 3.9 million had so many tubercle bacille in their sputum that the bacille could be identified by simple microscopy, and that there were 1.7 million deaths due to TB (1). In 2003, the incidence of TB was stable or falling in five of six WHO regions. The exception was the African region (AFR). Incidence was increasing in this region, especially in areas with high human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence rates (1), enough so that the global incidence of TB continued to increase at about 1% per year. Accentuating the impact of TB on the world’s well-being is its concentration among young adults throughout most of the developing world, and its airborne spread from person to person, especially to household members.
