Markers of Disease Evolution: The Case of Tuberculosis

✍ Scribed by JUAN P. APARICIO; ANGEL F. CAPURRO; CARLOS CASTILLO-CHAVEZ

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 232 KB
• Volume: 215
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.2001.2489

✦ Synopsis

Abrupt changes in environmental conditionsFbroadly understood to include demographic and social dynamicsFcan seriously impact the local or global disease dynamics of a population. These changes in the evolutionary landscape, which may occur over relatively short time-scales, are very likely to play a critical role in disease evolution. The potential impact of demographic, social and epidemiological shifts on the evolution of tuberculosis epidemics in the United States over the past century and a half is the main subject of this article. Evidence is provided to support the hypothesis that the observed substantial decreases in the incidence of active tuberculosis are the result of abrupt reductions in the rates of disease progression.