ive in poverty and partly because of how tuberculosis has evolved. When Europe was ravaged by tuberculosis, white people with a higher resistance to the disease survived and passed on this resistance to future generations. Ancestors of American blacks did not come in contact with the disease until they came to America and came in contact with white people (1:887).
Pathogenesis and Pathophysiology: In the U.S. today, tuberculosis is solely transmitted by inhaling indoor air contaminated with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (1:887). The air is contaminated by a person with active tuberculosis coughing out bacteria into the it. A fetus may acquire tuberculosis from its mother during birth by breathing in or swallowing infected amniotic fluid. In developing countries, children may become infected with other mycobacterium which cause tuberculosis. Mycobacterium bovis may be transmitted in unpasteurized milk (1:887).
The immune system of a person infected with tuberculosis usually destroys the bacteria or seals them off at the site of infection. Sometimes the bacteria aren't destroyed and lay dormant inside white blood cells for many years. About 80 percent of tuberculosis infections are caused by activation of dormant bacteria, which can occur when a person's immune system becomes impaired, for instance in AIDS. W
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