Humanity has had the tools to diagnose, treat and prevent TB for decades. Because of that, this airborne bacterial respiratory disease, once the cause of about 25 percent of all deaths in the United States, is no longer a widespread threat to public health in wealthy countries. But that’s far from true in lower-income countries. While international public health efforts have cut global TB case rates by a quarter and death rates by half since 2000, it is still the world’s No. 1 infectious-disease killer. TB claims more than one million lives annually.
Atul Gawande