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| EDITORIAL |
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| Year : 2017 | Volume
: 4
| Issue : 1 | Page : 5-6 |
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Tuberculosis: The millennium mandate
Amita Doshi-Nene
Guest Editor for this special number of Astrocyte. She is the Head, Department of Respiratory Medicine, at Mumbai's Bombay Hospital, India
| Date of Web Publication | 6-Nov-2017 |
Correspondence Address:
Amita Doshi-Nene
Guest Editor for this special number of Astrocyte. She is the Head, Department of Respiratory Medicine, at Mumbai's Bombay Hospital
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/astrocyte.astrocyte_66_17
How to cite this article:
Doshi-Nene A. Tuberculosis: The millennium mandate. Astrocyte 2017;4:5-6 |
From the time that tuberculosis (TB) was mentioned in the Vedas to the modern era of drug-resistant TB, India has been closely associated with TB. Today, India is the “power house” of TB in sheer numbers, having the most TB patients in the world — more than two million, of the more than nine million active cases globally. It, thus, becomes our prerogative to stay updated on the current status of TB.
The World Health Organization named TB as a global emergency on as many as three occasions in the last three decades – the first global emergency was the worldwide resurgence of TB in 1993, the second global emergency was the deadly combination of human immunodeficiency virus and TB, and the third was the worst of them all, the multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB, which frequently affects economically active young adults.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis was named the “Millennium Bug” and the 20th century saw a number of advances in bacteriology, microbiology, and pharmacology towards a “final push” to beat this disease that has been around since the history of mankind.
However, as these last few decades evolved, the entire spectrum of the bug seemed to change, with the advent of MDR in the 1980s to the XDR strain in the turn of the century and now XXDR TB – the millennium bug has clearly shown that the war is far from over!
India is currently the ‘power house’ of tuberculosis in sheer numbers, having the most tubercular patients in the world. It is therefore our sacred duty to stay updated on the current status of tuberculosis, if the millennium bug, call it Mycobacterium tuberculosis if you will, is to be vanquished.
This special issue of Astrocyte reflects on the recent advances in TB bringing to you the current state of the art in each of its domain—be it the newer diagnostic methods or treatment strategies—in both pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB and what we are likely to expect in the future, even as Homo sapiens plan to inhabit the Earth's moon and perhaps the red planet. Who knows the mycobacterium might even have its footprints firmly engraved on them!
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