RESUMO
Analysis of 483 skeletons from Arica (Chile) and review of mummy dissection records demonstrates an overall 1% prevalence rate for tuberculosis between 2000 B.C. and A.D. 1500. Tuberculosis cases cluster in the period A.D. 500-1000 which correlates with fully agropastoral societies. Considering only these agropastoral societies, about 2% of their members show tuberculosis lesions. A segment of DNA unique to Mycobacterium tuberculosis was identified in an extract from the vertebral lesion of a 12-year-old girl with Pott's disease from about A.D. 1000, establishing the pre-Columbian presence of tuberculosis with the most specific evidence currently available.
Assuntos
Paleopatologia/história , Tuberculose Osteoarticular/história , Sequência de Bases , Osso e Ossos/química , Osso e Ossos/patologia , Chile/epidemiologia , DNA Bacteriano/análise , DNA Bacteriano/química , DNA Bacteriano/genética , Feminino , História do Século XV , História do Século XVI , História Antiga , História Medieval , Humanos , Masculino , Dados de Sequência Molecular , Mycobacterium tuberculosis/genética , Prevalência , Tuberculose Osteoarticular/epidemiologia , Tuberculose Osteoarticular/patologiaRESUMO
The existence of tuberculosis in the pre-Columbian Americas is controversial because the morphology of the lesion is not specific, the organism is culturally nonviable in ancient tissues, and nonpathogenic soil mycobacteria can contaminate buried bodies. We report the recovery of DNA unique to Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a lung lesion of a spontaneously mummified, 1000-year-old adult female body in southern Peru. This provides the most specific evidence possible for the pre-Columbian presence of human tuberculosis in the New World.