Is globalization really increasing the spread of Tuberculosis? In many regards, the answer is yes. Before I elaborate, keep this in mind: it is very difficult for a patient to infect a bystander. A person must have a prolonged period of exposure for the virus to even be spread. Regardless of this fact, transmission is always a possibility and always seems to at least spread fear.

Fear was definitely plaguing many students who attend IPFW, a school in Fort Wayne, when a commuter student was supposedly diagnosed with “an active case of tuberculosis” on Monday, January 12, 2009. Though the vice chancellor of the school, William McKinney, assured the students and the faculty that transmission of the disease was highly unlikely, many students believed the unlikely. They feared that, despite the odds, they might be infected.

Why the fear? Sure there is a slight possibility that the classmates could have contracted the disease. Maybe some of them did. However, what is truly interesting is that so many people resorted to fear. This shows that few of the students actually knew a lot about TB. Why is this?

In order to help raise awareness, Hillary Clinton plans to devote more attention to the relationship between this disease and HIV and AIDS. In the words of Diane V. Havlir, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, “there is a deadly synergy between HIV and TB. TB is the major cause of death among persons living with HIV. Further, TB can spread easily, from a cough or a sneeze or by breathing in the exhaled air from a TB-infected individual, and too many HIV patients may be acquiring tuberculosis as they sit in health clinic waiting rooms…At least one-third of the 33.2 million people living with HIV worldwide are carrying TB and have up to a 15 percent risk of developing active TB disease every year. Inadequate TB-control programs jeopardize success of these efforts, and fail to prevent the emergence of drug-resistant TB. Drug-resistant TB strains produce high death rates, especially among persons already infected with HIV.”

Despite the grim case stories about the disease, the US is actually faring pretty well. According to Havlir, the 2008 year ended with the fewest cases of TB reported since the tracking of the disease began. Other parts of the world, however, have yet to experience such positive statistics.