Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2017 Sep 26:8:689.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2017.00689. eCollection 2017.

Addressing the Challenges of Tuberculosis: A Brief Historical Account

Hussam W Al-Humadi  1   2 , Rafal J Al-Saigh  1 , Ahmed W Al-Humadi  2
Affiliations
Review

Addressing the Challenges of Tuberculosis: A Brief Historical Account

Hussam W Al-Humadi et al. Front Pharmacol. .

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly contagious disease that still poses a threat to human health. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the pathogen responsible for TB, uses diverse ways in order to survive in a variety of host lesions and to subsequently evade immune surveillance; as a result, fighting TB and its associated multidrug resistance has been an ongoing challenge. The aim of this review article is to summarize the historical sequence of drug development and use in the fight against TB, with a particular emphasis on the decades between World War II and the dawn of the twenty first century (2000).

Keywords: anti-TB drugs; history; multidrug resistance; pharmaceutical innovation; treatment; tuberculosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Timeline of the discovery of major compounds used for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) from the Second World War until 2000.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Adams K. N., Takaki K., Connolly L. E., Wiedenhoft H., Winglee K., Humbert O., et al. (2011). Drug tolerance in replicating mycobacteria mediate macrophage-induced efflux mechanism. Cell 145, 39–53. 10.1016/j.cell.2011.02.022 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Akachi Y., Zumla A., Atun R. (2012). Investing in improved performance of national tuberculosis programs reduces the tuberculosis burden: analysis of 22 high-burden countries, 2002–2009. J. Infect. Dis. 15, S284–S292. 10.1093/infdis/jis189 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Amaral L., Martins M., Viveiros M. (2007). Enhanced killing of intracellular multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis by compounds that affect the activity of efflux pumps. J. Antimicrob. Chemother. 59, 1237–1246. 10.1093/jac/dkl500 - DOI - PubMed
    1. American Thoracic Society (2003). Treatment of tuberculosis. Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 167, 603–662. 10.1164/rccm.167.4.603 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aminov R. I. (2010). A brief history of the antibiotic era: lessons learned and challenges for the future. Front. Microbiol. 1:134. 10.3389/fmicb.2010.00134 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources