What's The Deadliest Bacterial Disease?

Bacteria are found everywhere, in any climate and location throughout the world. While some are airborne, others are most prevalent in water, soil, plants, animals, and even people. Many strains of bacteria are harmless and some are even beneficial, such as those found in the human gastrointestinal tract to aid digestion and produce vitamins. However, there are few (less than 1% of all bacteria types) that cause illness in humans. Some bacteria can be quite dangerous, resulting in salmonella, pneumonia, or meningitis.

The most deadly bacterial disease contracted by human beings is mycobacterium tuberculosis, the world's leading infectious disease with more than 1,700,000 deaths per year. As much as 13% of cases are resistant to most antibiotics, and about 6% are resistant or unresponsive to essentially all treatment.

What is a Bacterial Infection?

The disease is treatable and curable. Antibiotics can be used to treat tuberculosis infections, but because the bacteria can hide inside human cells it is resistant to many medications and most people are required to take four different antibiotics for six months. The most effective first-line antibiotic has proven to be rifampicin, but nearly 500,000 cases per year have shown resistance to its effects.

An estimated 58,000,000 lives were saved from tuberculosis between 2000 and 2008; however, the treatment success rate for tuberculosis is still only 30%, and the drug-resistant strains have spread to more than 123 countries - statistics that prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to put out calls for new vaccines and drugs. The WHO aims to end tuberculosis by 2030.