Mycobacteria other than tuberculosis

Mycobacteria are more resistant than other non-sporulating bacteria to a wide range of biocides. Examples of such organisms axe Mycobacterium tuberculosis, theM avium-intracellulare (MAI) group andM. chelonae (M. chelonei). Of the bacteria, however, the most resistant of all to biocides are bacterial spores, e.g. Bacillus subtilis, B. cereus. 

The infectious killer disease, tuberculosis (TB), is the leading cause of death worldwide from a single human pathogen, claiming more adult lives than diseases such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), malaria, diarrhea, leprosy, and all other tropical diseases combined. The organism usually responsible, the tubercle bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MT), was discovered by Robert Koch in 1882. However, M. bovis, which infects cattle, may also infect humans, and M. africanum is a cause of TB in West Africa. Furthermore, a number of normally nonpathogenic mycobacteria, especially M. avium, M. intracellulare, and M. scrofulaceum, cause opportunistic infectious disease in patients with AIDS. Pulmonary TB, the most common type of the disease, is usually acquired by inhalation of the bacillus from an infectious patient and causes irreversible lung destruction (Newton et al., 2000). 

Infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and a variety of non-tuberculous mycobacteria has been observed in HSC transplant recipients (Navari et al. 1983 Mohite et al. 2001). Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection can occur after HSC transplantation, but the incidence in the reported series is lower than that of other infections (Roy and Weisdorf 1997 Aljurf et al. 1999 Mohite et al. 2001). Overall, the incidence of tuberculosis has bee reported to be between 0.19% and 5.5% of cases (Martino et al. 1996 Roy and Weisdorf 1997). Reports of non-tuberculous mycobacterial disease in both HSC and solid organ transplant recipients have also increased (Ozkaynak et al. 1990 Busch et al. 1991 Doucette and Fishman 2004). 

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