Med. praxi. 2023;20(5):291-294 | DOI: 10.36290/med.2023.052

Tuberculosis - is this still a 21st century issue?

MUDr. Ján Dindoš

Plicní a všeobecný praktický lékař, Neratovice

The article deals with the current issue of tuberculosis, a disease that has accompanied mankind for at least 40 millennia. In the late 20th century, phthisiologists, experts on tuberculosis, optimistically hoped that it would be eradicated by the end of the second millennium. The persistence of poor social conditions in the poor countries of the so-called Third World, with inadequate calmetisation, poor screening, and the emergence of HIV disease, which significantly weakens immunity, have reversed the situation so that even today, in the 21st century, we have to fight this infectious disease, when, moreover, we are faced with a new challenge, strains of mycobacterium tuberculosis that are resistant to conventional anti-tuberculosis drugs. Last but not least, the problem of migration is coming to the fore.

Keywords: tuberculosis, history, prevention, calmetisation, antituberculotics, resistance.

Accepted: November 27, 2023; Published: December 19, 2023  Show citation