Abstrakt
Tuberculosis as a disease has been present in humans since antiquity, with the earliest unambiguous detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the remains of bison dated 17,000 years before the present. About 90% of those infected with TB have asymptomatic (latent) infection.
One in ten latent infections may progress to active disease which, if left untreated, kills more than half of its victims. In 2004, 14.6 million people had active TB and there were 8.9 million new cases and 1.7 million deaths, mostly in developing countries, including Ethiopia.