Medicinal Plants in the Treatment of Tuberculosis III

Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a significant infectious disease. Even with the fact that the causative organism was already found more than 100 years ago and many successful medicines and vaccines are already provided rendering tuberculosis a preventable and curable disease, tuberculosis still remnants as one of the public health conditions worldwide. The fundamental principles of tuberculosis prevention and control are the same as with all other infectious diseases. The curative part consists of the tuberculosis case finding and treatment and the preventive part involves the BCG vaccination and these serve as the major components of the national tuberculosis initiative to cure the disease and sojourn its transmission. However, case finding and treatment are still considered to be the most effective weapon against tuberculosis. Around world’s 1/3rd of the existing population is projected to be asymptomatically infected with tuberculosis and about 5-10% are likely to progress clinical disease during their lifetime. The disease’s long-lasting persistence is due to the propensity of the tubercle bacilli to survive for years in the human body. Development of drugresistant strains, and HIV infection occurrences are the major reasons for high infection rates are prevalent in many countries. There is an urgent need to look for new medicines that are successful and affordable for everyone but in the last 30 years, no new antitubercular drugs have been developed and successfully launched. Due to its large chemical diversity, plant kingdom can look forward to an effective source of new antitubercular agents but the antimycobacterial activity of very limited plant species has been tested so far, even after the occurrence of several plant species worldwide.