Tuberculosis (TB) is a wildly successful pathogen. It infects up to two billion people in every corner of the world, with a new infection of a human host every second.
A new analysis of dozens of tuberculosis genomes gathered from around the world has shed some light on how it evolves to resist countermeasures – it that marches in lockstep with human population growth and history, evolving to take advantage of the most crowded and wretched human conditions.
The analysis reveals that tuberculosis experienced a 25-fold expansion worldwide in the 17th century, a time when human populations underwent explosive growth and European exploration of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania was at its peak.
Read the full, original story here: Tuberculosis Genomes Show Why It’s A Wildly Successful Pathogen
