North Korea and the USA can indeed unite: in the battle against TB.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium. It spreads through cough or sneeze from subjects with an active infection. While in most cases the disease is asymptomatic, a minority of latent infections does become active (i.e. the subject develops symptoms), and when it does, if left untreated, the disease can be deadly.

According to the CDC one third of the world's population are infected with TB, and while in the US the incidence of the disease has been declining over time, it is still a huge problem in parts of the world like Asia and sub-saharan Africa. While normally the chance of a latent TB infection becoming active is one in ten, the chance is much higher for HIV-positive subjects because their immune system is already debilitated by the HIV virus. As the CDC reports:

"TB is a leading killer of people living with HIV (PLHIV)."

A regimen of 3-4 drugs has been available for years to keep latent infections from becoming active. Sadly, TB infections from multidrug resistant strains (MDR) have been steadily increasing, setting back the progress made in the past decades.

From the World Health Organization:

"Drug resistance arises due to improper use of antibiotics in chemotherapy of drug-susceptible TB patients. This improper use is a result of a number of actions including, administration of improper treatment regimens and failure to ensure that patients complete the whole course of treatment. Essentially, drug resistance arises in areas with weak TB control programmes. A patient who develops active disease with a drug-resistant TB strain can transmit this form of TB to other individuals."

One of the countries plagued by MDR TB strains is North Korea, where the incidence of TB has dramatically advanced over the past years, reaching one of the highest incidences outside sub-saharan Africa.

In this week's issue, Science Magazine describes a joint effort between two countries that, according to the recent news, you'd least expect to pair up: North Korea and the United States. In collaboration with Stanford University, the Korean ministry of Public Health opened in 2010 a National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory (NTRL).

"NTRL researchers can now diagnose TB cases that are resistant to first-line drug combinations, making it possible to spot patients who need more aggressive therapy. And the lab will soon add capacity to screen for extensively drug-resistant TB, known as XDR—the worst strains, some of which are close to impossible to treat."

The Science report covers stories of hope in the midst of desperation. It points to pressing issues the North Korean government has to address within its borders, and focusing on them would seem a more reasonable and logical strategy than polishing nuclear arsenals. Let's hope that the roots of this collaboration grow deeper than any political discrepancies. Let's hope that the battle against a common enemy (TB) will put an end to the empty, unfounded threats and pave the way to a broader, more civilized way of communication between countries.

Stone, R. (2013). Public Enemy Number One Science, 340 (6131), 422-425 DOI: 10.1126/science.340.6131.422