Tuberculosis remains the world’s most deadly infectious disease but change is coming that could cut the threat and consign the illness to the past
Electricity cables slung low across the roads mean that only small vehicles can make their way through the bustling neighbourhood around Manila’s Karuhatan health centre. The clinic, in the same unit as a fire station and nursery, serves a working-class population, many of whom work in the multiple factories of Valenzuela City, a suburb of the Philippine capital.
Here, in a crowded area of a busy city, cutting-edge medical technology is being used in an effort to end tuberculosis, a disease that has plagued humanity for millennia. Every year, 1.5 million people die from TB – making it the planet’s top infectious killer.
