For some forms of tuberculosis, the chances that an exposed person will get infected depend on whether the individual and the bacteria share a hometown, according to a new study comparing how different strains move through mixed populations in cosmopolitan cities.
- By JAKE MILLER
Results of the research, led by Harvard Medical School scientists and published Aug. 1 in Nature Microbiology, provide the first hard evidence of long-standing observations that have led scientists to suspect that pathogen, place, and human host collide in a distinctive interplay that influences infection risk and fuels differences in susceptibility to infection.
The study strengthens the case for a long-standing hypothesis in the field that specific bacteria and their human hosts likely coevolved over hundreds or thousands of years, the researchers said.
The findings may also help inform new prevention and treatment approaches for tuberculosis, a wily pathogen that, each year, sickens more than 10 million people and causes more than a million deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
