Did anyone watch American Experience this week? "The Forgotten Plague"

[Hestia]

2. Here is a blog post from one of the virologists on the show at aired:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/blog/2015/02/10/plague-worldwide-epidemic/

The move to suburban living and the development of active public health programs have reduced the burden of tuberculosis -- a serious, sometimes fatal infectious disease of the lungs -- in many affluent countries. Many of us, however are not so lucky and are still faced with the ugly specter of TB which was so eloquently portrayed in the recent American Experience documentary, The Forgotten Plague.

Why is the “Forgotten Plague” still such a threat outside of the US and Europe? One of the principal issues is the sheer size of the problem. There are over 3 billion people who harbor the bacterium that causes TB, and while most will remain healthy, determining which of these 3 billion will develop the disease is – at the moment – not feasible. So countries with high burdens of disease are faced with making the decision of whether to treat those who are sickest, or to try and treat all of those who are infected. Of course, those who are sickest take most of the resources leaving a multitude of potential TB cases waiting to develop.

A second major issue is the length of treatment required to eliminate the bacterium that causes disease. The drugs that work against TB are not regular antibiotics; three months is required for even the minimum treatment and we all know how easy it is to stop taking antibiotics once you feel better, imagine keeping on with the treatment for 3-6 months. So compliance is an additional issue. The bacteria causing TB also develop drug resistance and so we need to take two or three drugs together. Even when the lengthy drug treatment is adhered to, drug resistance can develop, and this plunges us back into the pre-antibiotic era so harrowingly portrayed in The Forgotten Plague.

[more at link]

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I was in shock when I watched the show because you just don't hear about TB so much anymore unless it deals with Africa. There, citizens are forced to take the full course of antibiotics to help stop the spread.

I had no idea how long TB has been with humankind! You always hear about leprosy/Hanson's Disease but never the age of TB. I found it interesting too in light of today's outbreaks of preventable diseases happening today. How would we act if a TB epidemic today? We certainly don't have the sanatorium's available and who wants to go live in a warehouse? You must admit the sanatoriums fed them well, in thinking that fresh nutritious food would help combat the disease, which in large part probably did help. They didn't know about immune system response but were aware of something like it when they prescribed nutritious food and plenty of sun and fresh air.

Who knew that porches on houses came about from TB because of the fresh air prescriptions? And the raising of skirts and the waning of beards? So much changed publicly (for ill and for good) after the discovery of the bacterium.

This is one of AE better shows IMNSHO