tuberculosis and pneumonia were thought to be virtually eradicated, and no longer a threat to human health. these diseases have been making a come back, and doctors are struggling to treat them. explain why and how this is occurring.
Medicine - 3 Answers
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1 :
When a virus or bacteria starts to lessen, a few of them will actually become "carriers". They are like the -(- mathematical sign. Infecting a human but not showing or rather developing known symptoms. These human carriers will pass the "passive" strain to another human which will then become active. By the time it starts to become active, there would be around 20 to 30 carriers. Carriers will not develop symptoms and will not suffer from the disease. Since the human body has somewhat an immunity to the disease, they recover easily. Those who have weak immunity system would suffer the most.
2 :
Your source data is flawed. Neither of these diseases have ever been thought to be 'virtually eradicated' by anyone with any knowledge of medical history. The only disease that is thought to have been 'virtually eradicated' is smallpox--but we are learning now that we were wrong. The term Pneumonia is used to refer to several different illnesses. it can refer to any viral or bacterial infection-or irritation- of the lungs which leads to fluid accretion, or it can refer to a specific infection by Streptococcus pneumoniae. Tuberculosis refers to a specific infection of the lungs by the Tubercles bacillus. Both of these types of bacterial infections have been on the rise largely because of the development of antibiotic resistant strains of bacterias. Antibiotic resistance usually develops because of patients starting and failing to complete an antibiotic regimen, but they can also develop via plasmid sharing of resistance by other bacteria. An example of normal resistance development can be seen in Russia, where the huge increase in antibiotic resistant strains of TB have been tracked directly to the prison system. People are placed in the overcrowded jails in close proximity to other infected people which allows for the bacteria to spread. The prison health system begins an antibiotic regimen whose initial and early doses kill those bacteria most susceptible to the antibiotic, but when the patient is released before the regimen is completed, they are often unable to afford to complete the regimen, which allows the more resistant strain to proliferate. Should the individual be returned to jail, (as they often are,) they there will infect more people with the more resistant strain which they have developed. A similar evolution can be seen among cockroaches in the U.S. In the 1940s and 50s, the first roach poisons has a glucose (sugar) base. This was effective against 99.99% of the roach population, killing them off. However, that 0.01% of the population that did not like sugar did not eat the poison, and no longer had the sugar liking population to compete with for resources. Because of this, the descendants of those roaches that didn't like sugar were more likely to reproduce, leading to a current population against which sugar based poisons are ineffective. The second, and more insidious method by which bacteria can acquire antibiotic resistance is plasmid transfer. This occurs when one antibiotic resistant bacteria is in close proximity with a nonresistant bacteria--and it doesn't even matter if they are the same type of bacteria. MRSA can (and often does,) contribute its Methicillin resistance to Tubercles bacillus when the two are in close proximity, as can be found in nursing homes across the United States. This is the greater concern with MRSA, that the resistance will be transferred to other more lethal bacteria, not that the MRSA itself will kill the host infected with it. But the real root cause of antibiotic resistance developing is the over-prescription of antibiotics. Most people can overcome most infections without them. If they couldn't, then your ancestors wouldn't have lived long enough to have children. People forget that we've only had antibiotics for about 70 years, and that the majority of those lives that have been saved due to them, (and which have increased the average life expectancy,) were primarily infant lives. An otherwise healthy adult is at low risk for dying from infection without the use of antibiotics. It is largely due to the reckless use of these drugs that we now have so many more virulent and deadly strains of bacteria. If it continues, we can expect that antibiotics will become completely ineffective within a hundred years.
3 :
Neither one was thought go be eradicated. TB and other Acid Fast Bacilli have been agents of pneumonia for some time now. Obviously there are other causes of pneumonia-bacterial, viral being the most common. Antibiotic resistance is a major concern. TB is becoming multiple drug resistant, that's a problem. Environmental factors, and socioeconomic ones, play a large part in the transmission of this disease. Still, not many people are out there dying of "the consumption", so I would take my chances with our current medicine vs. historical treatments
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