tuberculosis

TB reclaims title of deadliest infectious disease. That's an 'outrage' says WHO

5:10pm November 07, 2024

DIslodged by COVID early in the pandemic, tuberculosis is once again the infectious disease that takes the most lives each year. And the number of cases set a new record. What's going on?

Pond Inlet on Baffin Island is one of the Inuit communities in the Canadian arctic facing a TB outbreak.

Health & Safety

Why does TB have such a hold on the Inuit communities of the Canadian Arctic?

5:12pm May 02, 2024

by Melody Schreiber

Canada has one of the world's lowest rates of tuberculosis. Yet this deadly disease is surging among Indigenous people in this icy, remote part of the country.

Health & Safety

NPR quiz goes global: Test your knowledge of milestones and millstones in 2023

8:03am January 14, 2024

by Marc Silver

Test your knowledge of global health and development with 12 questions about landmark events of 2023.

A doctor checks chest x-rays of a tuberculosis patient at a clinic in Mumbai, India, that treats those with drug-resistant strains of the disease. The World Health Organization has called for the eradication of this ancient and deadly infectious disease.

Health & Safety

WHO says we can 'write the final chapter in the story of TB.' How close are we?

12:09pm November 16, 2023

by Fran Kritz

The pandemic brought notable setbacks in the effort to eradicate tuberculosis, which is likely to regain its notorious title of deadliest infectious disease in 2023. But there are signs of progress.

X-rays of a patient with tuberculosis, taken in November 2002 in New Jersey, show damage to the lungs.

A woman is in custody after refusing tuberculosis treatment for more than a year

7:27am June 03, 2023

by Emily Olson

A judge in Tacoma, Wash., approved a civil warrant for the woman's arrest after 16 requests for intervention from local health officials. Police observed the woman board a bus and visiting a casino.

Munyaradzi Musvosvi, a researcher who works for the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, in a storage facility at the University of Cape Town that holds in deep freeze the blood samples of people exposed to TB. He's part of a team working to develop a potential mRNA vaccine by looking at the immune cells in the blood samples.

Frozen cells reveal a clue for a vaccine to block the deadly TB bug

1:33pm March 06, 2023

by Nurith Aizenman

Tuberculosis kills 1.6 million a year — the second deadliest infectious disease after COVID-19. Using immune cells and mRNA technology, scientists in South Africa are working on a new vaccine.

Queue Listen Now

A poster photo of U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Russian prisoner Trevor Reed is hung in Lafayette Park near the White House on Wednesday.

Trevor Reed's family says he's back in a Russian prison hospital but not getting care

12:40pm April 04, 2022

by Rachel Treisman

Reed's family says he has tuberculosis symptoms and lost 7 pounds in five days during a hunger strike. They are calling for the Biden administration to help bring the Marine veteran home.

Refugees from Ukraine, which has a high rate of tuberculosis, are often screened for the disease. Above: Dr. Natalie Wöhrle analyzes the X-ray images of the lungs from a screening in Gauting, Germany, on March 12.

Health & Safety

Russia's war with Ukraine is devastating for Ukraine's war on TB

8:23am March 19, 2022

by Ari Daniel

The country has a high rate of tuberculosis. They'd been making progress but then came the pandemic ... and now the war. Doctors worryi about increased spread of this contagious and deadly disease.

Health workers share information about tuberculosis with residents of aslum neighborhoods in New Delhi. India has the greatest number of TB cases in the world.

Before COVID, TB was the world's worst pathogen. It's still a 'monster' killer

7:01am February 13, 2022

by Susan Brink

It was under control. And then it wasn't. In her new book Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History, VIdya Krishnan shows how "we repeat the same disease-spreading mistakes over and over."

A patient with tuberculosis waits to be seen by a doctor at the Sizwe Tropical Diseases Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. Annual deaths from the infectious disease are on the rise after years of progress.

Health & Safety

Global TB deaths are rising — and COVID gets the blame

10:54am October 15, 2021

by Jason Beaubien

After years of progress in reducing the number of annual deaths from tuberculosis, the number of cases of the infectious respiratory disease went up in 2020.