RT Book, Section
A1 Marais, Ben J.
A2 Shah, Samir S.
A2 Kemper, Alex R.
A2 Ratner, Adam J.
SR Print(0)
ID 1157321978
T1 Childhood Tuberculosis
T2 Pediatric Infectious Diseases: Essentials for Practice, 2e
YR 2019
FD 2019
PB McGraw-Hill Education
PP New York, NY
SN 9781259861536
LK accesspediatrics.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1157321978
RD 2024/04/19
AB Robert  Koch  (1843–1910)  identified  Mycobacterium  tuberculosis  as  the  cause  of  tuberculosis  (TB)  in  1882.  It  is  now  recognized  that  M.  tuberculosis  is  an  archetypical  human  pathogen  and  that  its  evolutionary  origin  is  closely  related  to  the  controlled  use  of  fire,  which  is  unique  to  Homo  sapiens  and  has  created  an  environmental  niche  for  mycobacteria  to  be  transmitted  via  the  respiratory  route.1  This  long  period  of  coevolution  explains  why  M.  tuberculosis  is  so  well  adapted  to  its  human  host  and  why  only  a  small  minority  of  people  infected  with  M.  tuberculosis  ever  progress  to  active  disease.