ABSTRACT
The importance of tuberculosis to public health can hardly be questioned. In the first meeting of specialists in internal medicine held in Paris in 1867, it was noted that tuberculosis was the most frequent condition with which the specialists had to deal, and for this reason a series of scientific meetings was initiated that led to the establishment of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. More than a century later, in 1993, tuberculosis was reported as the most frequent cause of death from a single agent among persons aged 15-49 years (1) and has been declared a global emergency. Anyone today may become infected with tuberculosis simply ~y breathing the air in a space through which a tuberculosis patient has passed.
