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One person in four is killed by TB in Europe and America.
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TB is treated in sanatoria, with a strict regimen of bed-rest, fresh air at all times – patients are even moved outside in their beds in all weathers – a healthy diet and a gradual increase in activity levels.
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Robert Koch identifies that TB is caused by an organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
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The first human trials of the vaccine Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), an attenuated version of Mycobaterium bovis (Bovine TB), are launched.
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Doctors Schatz, Bugie and Waksman announced the discovery of a drug called ‘Streptomycin‘ and that the first patient had been successfully treated with the drug.
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Doctors Robizek and Selikoff at Seaview Hospital, New York, use a new drug called ‘Isoniazid‘ to treat TB patients.
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A survey of 50,000 children showed an 80% reduction in infection rate following the BCG vaccination, leading to its introduction in secondary schools in the UK. At the time, those most at risk of TB in the UK were young adults in industrialised settings. The USA opts not to use BCG after their research showed contrary conclusions.
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First outbreak of drug-resistant TB in the US.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) declares TB ‘a global emergency’ with deaths from TB higher than any previous year in history. WHO estimates that one third of the world’s population is latently infected with TB, leading to 7-8 million cases of active TB – and 1.3-1.6 million deaths, annually.
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The Clinical Infectious Diseases Journal reports cases of totally drug-resistant TB (TDR-TB) in India.