Title: Following the trail of tuberculosis in Argentina: From hunter-gatherers and pastoralists to industrialized populations

Author: Jorge A. Suby¹

Affiliation: ¹INCUAPA-CONICET. Bioarchaeology Research Group, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Social Sciences, National University of the Center of Buenos Aires Province, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract: This paper explores the history of tuberculosis (TB) in Argentina from the pastoralists and hunter-gatherer of pre-Columbian period to recent times, in order to evaluate when increasing rates of this disease occurred, and its possible relationship with migration and industrialization. For this purpose, paleopathological, historical, and current epidemiological data were reviewed, and integrated under a paleopathological approach. Strong skeletal evidence suggests the existence of TB before colonization in several regions of the country, followed by two different periods of increasing TB rates. A first probable but unconfirmed stage is related to the contact between Europeans and natives during the 16th-18th centuries. A second stage, from the 1880s to the 1950s, is coincident and probably related to immigration, the disorganized growth of cities, and bad working conditions, finally controlled with the aid of chemotherapies. At the present time, TB is under control in the general population, but it remains an important health problem in areas with poor living conditions and in immunocompromised patients. Further research needs to be conducted in pre-Hispanic remains as well as in skeletal evidence and medical archives from 19th and 20th centuries sanatoria, in order to improve the current knowledge of TB before and during the industrialization period in Argentina.