**Part 1**

**HIV and Altered Immune Responses** 

**1** 

*Cuba* 

**Infection for** *Mycobacterium tuberculosis* **and** 

*National Reference Laboratory TB/Mycobacteria Collaborate Center PAHO / WHO* 

Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease also know as consumption, wasting disease, and the white plague, it has affected humans for centuries. Until the mid-1800s, people thought that tuberculosis, or TB, was hereditary. They did not realize that it could be spread from person to person through the air. Also, until the 1940s and 1950s there was no cure for TB. For

In 1865 a French surgeon, Jean-Antoine Villemin, proved that TB was contagious, and in 1882 a german scientist named Robert Koch discovered the bacteria causes TB, denominated as *Mycobacterium tuberculosis*. Yet half a century passed before drugs were discovered that could cure TB, until then, many people with TB were sent to sanatoriums, special rest homes where they followed a prescribed routine every day. A breakthrough came in 1943, an american scientist, Selman Waksman discovered a drug that could kill TB bacteria. Between 1943 and 1952, two more drugs were found, after these discoveries, many people with TB were cured and the death rate for TB in the United States dropped dramatically, and fewer

 Overall, one-third of the world's population is currently infected with the TB bacillus. 5-10 % of people who are infected with TB bacilli become sick or infectious at some time

TB program activities, reinforced by successful chemotherapy, resulted in a pronounced reduction of infection and death rates. The disease became greatly controlled but it never quite disappeared. Then, in around 1985, cases of TB began to rise again in industrialized countries. Several inter-related forces drove this resurgence, including increase in prison populations, homelessness, injection drug use, crowded housing and increased immigration from countries where TB continued to be endemic. Above all, the decline in TB control activities and the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) epidemic were two major factors fuelling each other in the re-emergence of TB. People with HIV and TB infection are much more likely to develop TB. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has produced a devastating effect on TB control worldwide. While one out of ten

many people, a diagnosis of TB was a slow death sentence 1-4.

Someone in the world is newly infected with TB bacilli every second.

**1. Introduction** 

and fewer people got TB 5. A global health emergency 6, 7:

during their life.

**Nontuberculous Mycobacteria in the** 

**HIV/AIDS Patients** 

Lilian María Mederos Cuervo

*Tropical Medicine Institute Pedro Kourí (IPK)* 
