Our “optimism” that TB has been all but defeated is proving misplaced, say the medics, with new forms of the bacterial infection emerging apace.
Britain has higher rates of infection than other comparable countries, they note, advising that new forms of testing that are better able to spot the disease need to be adopted.
Writing in the journal Thorax, professors Andy Bush and Ian Pavord, of the Royal Brompton Hospital in London and Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, warn: “Whatever we may have once optimistically thought, TB remains with death, taxes and political chicanery as being inevitable, unavoidable and deeply unpleasant.
“It shows every sign of weathering the storm and superb randomised controlled trials, to emerge in ever-increasingly drug-resistant forms, potentially turning the clock back to the 1930s.”
Before the avent of antibiotics, TB was very common: in the mid 1930s there were over 50,000 cases in England and Wales annually.
By the 1980s the infection rate had dropped 10-fold to about 5,000 a year.
But in the last decade it has risen by about 50 per cent, from around 6,000 to 9,000 cases annually.
However, the increase has been driven almost exclusively by immigration - specifically from sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia - and not by the rise of resistant strains.
Foreigners have a 22-fold higher chance of being diagnosed with TB than people born in the UK, according to research. They account for about three-quarters of TB cases.
Doctors believe new ways of testing immigrants for TB urgently need to be adopted.
Many immigrants arrive with latent (ie dormant) infection but they go on to develop active TB while here.
Currently those deemed at risk of carrying TB first undergo a 'skin prick' test - which is not very accurate - and then those found to be positive are meant to have an x-ray, to check for active disease.
Researchers argue this is wasteful, as many without TB end up getting x-rayed, while many with the infection pass through due to a false result.
A new method called interferon-gamma release assay (IGRAs) is being used in France and Germany but not currently in the UK.
Using IGRAs would eliminate the need for x-rays, pick up more cases and be cost-effective, according to researchers also writing in Thorax.
*Flagrant use of antibiotics on Chinese pig farms is driving up resistance to harmful bacteria, say researchers. The team, from Michigan State University in the US and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, found levels of 'antibiotic resistance genes' thousands of times higher than normal.
Professor James Tiedje, from Michigan State, said: "Our research took place in China, but it reflects what's happening in many places around the world."
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they said tighter regulations were needed on use of veterinary antibiotics.