CHEARS

COVID-19 has taken away every column in newspapers and in the web and the concerns are genuine. However, just as much attention and public health measures are required to face respiratory diseases like Tuberculosis which has resulted in over a billion deaths in the last 200 years. Although WHO emphasizes the need to eradicate TB and has given directives to several government agencies and philanthropies to invest on TB research, the disease continues to remain neglected and suppressed in several under-developed and developing countries. A particularly daunting case of TB is when the strain causing the infection in a patient is naturally resistant to antibiotics. The BCG Vaccine has also lost importance in several countries owing to its efficiency progressively going down with the individual reaching the later stages of adulthood. This calls for the need to focus on new TB vaccines and intervention therapies which are long-standing, as its always better to be prepared than to find a solution during chaos. TB is an infectious disease which I believe deserves just as much space in the media, scrutiny and consideration as COVID-19.