Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a severe disease that mainly affects the lungs. TB remains the deadliest killer disease despite the current epidemic of COVID.
Like COVID, Tuberculosis bacteria can spread from person to person through sneezing and coughing And post COVID, and the Corona Virus has also posed a risk to people with TB.
TB is a potentially fatal disease and has many causes, yet it is preventable and has a wide range of treatments in the market.
When the TB affects the lungs, the disease results in being more contagious, with the person usually getting sick and close contact with them can make others affected too. Hence, it also brings isolation and social stigma to the patient suffering from TB.
It is mainly considered the disease of the poor as it is prevalent in a more crowded area with fewer resources.
TB remains with us in a different form.
TB Infection (Latent TB):
An individual with TB bacteria in the body who shows no symptoms is the one with latent TB.
The immune system has the bacteria in most cases, yet they do not replicate or even cause the disease.
This shows the TB infection but no active disease. There is no risk that a latent patient can pass TB to any other person. Still, the patient with latent TB requires treatment, as they are like a trickling bomb that might have TB once they are immune deficient for some reason.
Although in the 1940s, developed effective drug treatments, the current recommended treatment for people with drug-resistant tuberculosis is a 6-month regimen of four first-line drugs: isoniazid, rifampicin, ethambutol, and pyrazinamide.
However, RR-TB and MDR-TB necessitate a longer regimen and can become unmanageable. The currently approved BCG vaccine is 100 years old, and there has been no significant advancement or breakthrough in the vaccine or drug development.
The world needs better drugs and biomarkers for early discovery and a promising vaccine. All the scientific fraternity needs to look at the opportunistic bacteria from a very different perspective.
Newer drugs on new pathways need to be evaluated, and more funds need to be directed to research on TB by the government and Industry. Our fight should be towards combating this disease before the time runs out!
TB Disease (Active TB):
The body is unable to contain the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, it multiplies and overpowers the immune system and shows symptoms.
The immune system suffers weakness, and the patient is kept on constant medications with regular visits to the doctor.
- Early Signs of Tuberculosis?
TB is the result when the mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria can replicate itself and cause symptoms that cause active TB.
The risk of developing TB is higher in individuals with a weakened immune system and past infection.a
The early warning signs for the Mycobacterium tuberculosis infecting the individual with TB, and is ought to see the doctor immediately, are as follows:
- Coughing for three or more weeks
- Coughing up blood or mucus
- Pain in the chest, or when breathing or coughing
- Unintentional weight loss
- Fatigue
- Fever
- Night sweats
- Chills
- Loss of appetite
- Causes
The Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria causes TB, which can be spread through air droplets, while the individual is coughing, sneezing, spitting, laughing, talking, etc. activities.
There can also be some causes that can result in TB out of the blue; some of them are as follows:
- Travelling or living in certain areas
- Working in health care
- Being a resident or employee of a residential care facility.
Tuberculosis is a complex disease to treat, and researchers and medical practitioners are constantly on the lookout for medications that can treat active TB.
With the treatment of tuberculosis being critical and having the treatments in course range, approximately a quarter of the world's population is infected with M. tuberculosis, equivalent to around 2 billion people, and a relatively small proportion (5–10 per cent) will develop TB disease during their lifetime.
Currently, zoonotic TB is also raising curtains towards our health management of animals around us. If the drug regimen is so long in humans with an average of 60kg weight, we can not think of treating a cattle with 300kg weight with the first-line drug for such a long regimen. Diagnosis in the animal is also an issue as not much target has been evaluated.
Looking at the goose bumping scenario of what TB can lead to, should we restrict ourselves to old traditional research of antibiotics that shows AMR, or should we look at a better approach of targeting the disease with Biologics? We need to think together!!
We at GeNext Genomics serve the industry with the molecules that could be useful for research against mycobacterium tuberculosis and help our cases with high-quality and accurate molecules for their studies.
Our TB microarray has 100 gene cards that are easily developed into proteins for the study on diagnostic assays for therapeutics and vaccine candidates.
The very idea behind working on TB is working towards. We cater to every aspect, from molecules to antibodies, recombinant proteins, and much more.
Get in touch with us, and tell us your requirements, we will get it done. We are open to collaborating with people working on the disease to make better solutions for diagnosis and therapy.
Let us join hands together to beat the Monster!
Comments
Post a Comment