Source of drug-tolerant tuberculosis possibly behind TB relapses, intensity of treatment

University of Pittsburgh-led researchers discovered that the primary bacteria behind tuberculosis can grow on surfaces and that drug-tolerant strains flourish in these bacterial communities, the research team recently reported in Molecular Microbiology. The findings suggest a possible reason why human tuberculosis (TB) requires months of intensive antibiotic treatment and indicate a potential cause of the relapses that can nonetheless occur.