Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world's most lethal diseases, and is expected to kill almost 2 million people this year. But it has a relatively low public profile. Worse still, efforts to research, prevent and treat the disease are entangled in an unseemly rivalry with corresponding approaches to AIDS. TB has been with us for centuries, and has probably already claimed many of the people in the West who are genetically susceptible to it. By far the greatest prevalence today is in Africa and India, where susceptibility to TB often goes hand-in-hand with HIV infection (see Nature Med. 13,263; 2007 and www.nature.comews/specials/tb).
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