The medical aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has published a briefing paper about the alarming spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis, which they refer to as the "biggest threat to global health you've never heard of."
Tuberculosis (TB), which is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is one of the deadliest diseases in the world, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Every year, around 8 million people around the world fall ill with TB, and 1.3 million die of it.
TB spreads when a person with an active infection in the lungs coughs or sneezes droplets containing the bacteria into the air and these are then inhaled by someone else.
The disease usually affects the lungs, but it can also affect other organs. Typical symptoms include persistent coughing, sometimes with blood, weight loss, night sweats, fever, fatigue and loss of appetite.
Inadequate global response has led to surge in drug-resistant TB
Standard TB is curable, but because of inadequate global response, there is now a growing epidemic of strains that are drug resistant, says the MSF briefing paper.
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