How London became the TB capital of Europe
When Frances Wilson set out to chronicle the great ‘disease of storytellers’ on the streets of London, she had no idea of the twist in her own story that awaited.
"London air is thick with bacteria, one strain of which – the tubercle bacillus – is a major cause of tuberculosis (TB). The development, in the 1940s and 50s, of the drugs streptomycin and isoniazid led many people – myself included – to assume that TB had been eradicated. But like so much else in London, it had simply gone underground. Of more than 5,000 TB patients diagnosed in England every year, nearly 40% are Londoners. London is the TB capital of Europe."
Read the full story published in The Guardian here.