World TB Day

WORLD TB DAY

• World TB day is celebrated each year on 24th March. It is on this day in 1882, that Robert Koch had discovered / identified the TB bacilli (AFB).
• Robert Koch was a country doctor in erstwhile Prussia who was able to establish tuberculosis as an infectious disease for the first time. Till then, tuberculosis was considered to be a hereditary disease.
• Robert Koch isolated the TB germ by a new staining and culture method and confirmed that tuberculosis is caused by these organisms.
• Hence tuberculosis is also known as Koch’s disease.
• TB Association of India celebrates this day each year, by promoting TB seal campaign to fight the menace of this disease.