Tuberculosis in captive Asian elephants has been a subject of interest among the experts and practitioners for the past few decades. During COVID -19 pandemic, the zoos remained closed, and the caregivers had to spend extended hours in the enclosures to help the elephants get rid of boredom and depression. Such proximity enhanced the chance of TB transmission from elephants to human bodies. Hence, effective measures are needed for the early detection of TB infection in captive elephants to curb further transmission. 

TB is a severe disease but people, in general, are uninformed. We brush off the TB related concerns as unrequired. In this article, we have summed up some relevant information concerning TB. It is also essential to understand that there is enough information about TB across various websites. Still, there is a lack of initiatives to present them in an organized manner to the public. 

The lessons we are learning from COVID-19 pandemic can be transformative. Of course, the shortcomings in health care in each country have been exposed. However, the collaboration demonstrated by public and private sectors across the globe to find a solution is unprecedented. In our first issue of TBinfo, our appeal is to propagate the initiatives to address equally threatening infectious diseases such as Tuberculosis.

The world health organization has predicted high mortality rates due to infection by drug-resistant pathogens and has called for taking urgent measures to mitigate the crisis (WHO Report , 2019). While several national and international bodies have taken initiatives for finding new antibiotics, a less enthusiastic R&D by pharmaceutical companies towards antimicrobial drug discovery has aggravated the crisis globally. The alarming rate of occurrence of multidrug-resistant (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant t uberculosis (XDR-TB) therefore mandates pacing up the efforts to discover new drugs as well as explore alternative options with open mind.

The Pandemic has caused severe damage to the progress made in addressing Tuberculosis. An interdisciplinary collaborative framework is needed to address the ongoing and anticipated pandemics.

Tuberculosis, which is also popularly called as TB, is one of the most ancient diseases that has stayed and co-evolved continuously with the human beings, with the earliest record being more than 17000 years old.