The Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped HistoryIn 2020, while all eyes were on COVID-19, tuberculosis infected nearly 10 million people globally and killed 1.5 million. It was also the first year since 2005 that the number of deaths from the disease had risen. That increase was probably driven by COVID-19’s impact on testing and treatment services.
These buildings are hotbeds for tuberculosis. People who become infected, in Mumbai and across India, often wait months before they are properly diagnosed. In the meantime, they are given a hotchpotch of sometimes ineffective antibiotics, some of which have toxic side effects and nurture drug resistance.
Krishnan rails against India’s rationing of new tuberculosis drugs, such as bedaquiline, and backs up her arguments with horrifying personal stories. But here, the book’s chronology can be confusing: for example, the rationing of bedaquiline is introduced and condemned, and Krishnan expresses bewildered outrage that the drug is, for a time, limited to those who live near certain hospitals.