Preface

Chapter 7 **Pathophysiological Implications of Cell Envelope Structure in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Related Taxa 145**

Chapter 9 **Molecular Diagnostic Testing on Post Mortem Inspection and Rulings on Bovine Tuberculosis — An Experience Report**

Chapter 10 **Application of High Performance Liquid Chromatography for**

Carlos Adam Conte Junior, César Aquiles Lázaro de la Torre, Eduardo Eustáquio de Souza Figueiredo, Walter Lilenbaum and

**Identification of Mycobacterium spp 213**

Alderwick, Apoorva Bhatt and Gurdyal S. Besra

Chapter 8 **ENT Manifestations in Tuberculosis 177**

dos Anjos Carneiro-Leão

Vânia M. Flosi Paschoalin

**in Brazil 191**

**VI** Contents

David E. Minnikin, Oona Y-C Lee, Houdini H.T. Wu, Vijayashankar Nataraj, Helen D. Donoghue, Malin Ridell, Motoko Watanabe, Luke

Luiz Alberto Alves Mota, Paula Cristina Alves Leitão and Ana Maria

Ricardo César Tavares Carvalho, Leone Vinícius Furlanetto, Rafael da Silva Duarte, Luciano Nakazato, Walter Lilenbaum, Eduardo Eustáquio de Souza Figueiredo and Vânia Margaret Flosi Paschoalin

Tuberculosis is a more severe disease than other ones produced by virus that have caused the highest alerts worldwide. Tuberculosis has been declared a world emergency by the World Health Organiza‐ tion, and the governments of each country have been summoned to commit to its control. Over time, and despite great efforts, the global situation of tuberculosis is not encouraging, and more commit‐ ment and willingness is needed in order to have progress in the search for solutions.

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease with a large social, cultural, and government component. Each region is engaged by taking active part in different programs for diagnosis and treatment, therefore cutting the chain of transmission within the community. Despite of the great achievements in these governmental programs, several regions in the world still suffer from tuberculosis and show a high transmission rate within the economically active population, patients infected by the Human Immuno‐ deficiency Virus, and other chronic diseases which frequency varies in accordance with each region.

It is indisputable that the most significant achievements in tuberculosis control have been gained by means of scientific research which has managed to articulate community participation, traditional medicine, cultural and religious beliefs of the communities with the most recent breakthroughs in technology into successful initiatives. In this manner, new synthetic or natural compounds have been studied as promising for the treatment of drug-sensitive and multidrug resistant TB. New diagnostic methods have been provided; new vaccines have been developed, there has been evidence of infection mechanism between the bacterium and different hosts, which have allowed to gain deeper under‐ standing of the microorganism virulence.

Knowledge and scientific research must be the starting point so that each government begins its con‐ trol plans. Results of the operative research are the ones that guide the decision-making progress to‐ wards success, and they must ensure accessibility of the population affected taking into account the necessary cultural and religious considerations along with technological innovations under specific conditions of each region in order to guarantee the respect for each community.

Our book collects great inputs and contributions for the control of tuberculosis as a worldwide prob‐ lem; we document significant technological, microbiological, social, diagnostic, and immunological contributions, as well as the host-pathogen interaction, development and generation of new knowl‐ edge in the field of molecular epidemiology; and we state new scenarios as starting points for future research that will have a positive impact on the short and middle terms on world health, expanding the frontiers of knowledge in order to achieve an effective control of tuberculosis as a public health issue, and providing experimental models applicable to other diseases endured by humanity.

> **Wellman Ribón** School of Microbiology Universidad Industrial de Santander Colombia
