Tuberculosis – An overview

Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is spread through the air from person to person and mainly targets the lungs. The tuberculosis epidemic has been complicated by the emergence of drug-resistant TB and HIV-associated TB. In Malaysia, there were an estimated 0.4% of 40,000 TB cases with MDR-TB in 2014. The acquisition of drug resistance in M. tuberculosis is mainly depending on the efflux mechanisms which allow the bacteria to tolerate higher levels of a drug. The evolutionary pathway of drug resistance is influenced by epistasis and bacterial fitness. There are a few risk factors that responsible for the occurrence of drug-resistant TB.