We Have the Cure. Why is Tuberculosis Still Around?

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

Tuberculosis – the world’s deadliest infectious disease – could be dormant in your system for years before you realize you have it. In the U.S., it’s relatively rare; provisional data shows that there were just over 10,000 cases in 2024. But in other parts of the world, especially lower-income countries, the disease is spreading much more actively. Worldwide, more than 10 million people are diagnosed with an active tuberculosis infection every year. And even though modern medicine has all the tools to cure it, over a million people around the world still die from the sickness annually.

Author John Green thinks that’s a problem. In his book Everything is Tuberculosis, he charts the spread of tuberculosis in the past to the lessons it has to teach us in the present.

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0:00.0	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:05.0	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.
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0:18.8	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:24.4	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:29.8	Hey, ShoreWaver is Regina Barber here.
0:31.7	And our special guest today isn't a scientist.
0:35.4	My name is John Green.
0:36.7	I don't even really know what my job title is.
0:38.8	I guess I'm a writer and YouTuber.
0:41.5	John didn't say this because he's modest.
0:43.7	But along with his brother, Hank Green,
0:45.3	he's also supported a number of philanthropic projects,
0:48.6	which is how he ended up in Sierra Leone a couple years ago,
0:52.0	a place called Laca Government Hospital.
0:54.6	This little kid grabbed me by the T-shirt and started walking me around the hospital.
0:59.8	He had the same name as my son, Henry, and he looked to be about the same age, about nine years old.
1:04.4	You walked me all through the hospital, took me to the kitchen, where people were making food, took me to the lab,
1:08.9	where people were looking through microscopes,
1:10.9	looking for evidence of tuberculosis infection.
1:13.8	Debrucculosis, or TB, is a bacterial infection that spreads through the air when someone with
1:19.2	an active lung infection coughs or sneezes or spits.
	...

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