Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by the Koch
bacillus, a germ that belongs to the Mycobacterium family. It primarily
affects the lungs and it is contagious. Besides the lungs, TB can also
affect lymph nodes, intestinal tract, kidneys, bones, and brain.
If
you have a strong immune system you could not get ill of TB even if you
come in contact with infected subjects. You could also inactivate the
virus and keep it locked in your lungs by creating with the help of
macrophages a scar tissue all around the infected area, but in the
moment you get a weaker immune system (like those people who have HIV)
the bacillus could reactivate and manifest and even infect other organs.
Symptoms
of TB infection are: cough that lasts longer than three weeks, fever,
breathing problems, night sweats, fatigability, chest pains, and loss of
weight and appetite.
TB is transmittable from mother to fetus and
symptoms of the infection appear during the first year of life: fever,
poor feeding, breathing problems, failure to thrive and even swollen
liver and spleen.
Healthy persons receive the infection if living
or working in the same place with the infected person. By coughing,
shouting or sneezing, the infected person spreads the germs into the
air, and others inhale them. Shaking hands or touching clothes does not
infect others.
Another form of tuberculosis is transmitted by
drinking unpasteurized milk. The responsible bacterium for this form of
TB infection is called Mycobacterium bovis. Years before, this bacterium
was a major cause of TB in children, but now since most milk is
pasteurized (a heating process that kills the bacteria) it does not
cause TB any more.
There are some tests doctors do to find out if
one is infected. First of all, they perform a skin test, meaning that
they inject into your skin a purified protein derived for the TB germ.
After more then 48 hours the injected skin area will present a bump. If
the bump is large, the test is considered to be positive, meaning that
the TB infection has occurred.
If this test does not convince doctors about your condition, they will ask you to do a thoracic X-ray which shows where in the lungs the infection could be localized and how greatly it is expanded.
If the suspected person coughs, doctors take the sputum and with the help of the microscope they search for the TB germs in the sputum. This is quite an accurate method of diagnosing TB.
If this test does not convince doctors about your condition, they will ask you to do a thoracic X-ray which shows where in the lungs the infection could be localized and how greatly it is expanded.
If the suspected person coughs, doctors take the sputum and with the help of the microscope they search for the TB germs in the sputum. This is quite an accurate method of diagnosing TB.
The HIV patients
are at high risk of developing TB, due to their weakened immune system.
Some of them are infected with TB and the virus is not active, but at
any moment the virus can wake up and manifest. In the world, there are
about 38 million people living with AIDS and about one-third of them
also have TB. Very often tuberculosis affects the HIV patients long
before other problems correlated with HIV develop.
Tuberculosis
seems to appear more frequent in crowded, non-hygienic places like:
prisons, juvenile detention centers, and homeless shelters.
General
preventing methods of spreading the TB is hospitalizing the infected
person, and practically isolating it from those who are healthy.
Treatment must be followed at least 6 months constantly because
interrupting the treatment could lead to spreading the disease in other
organs, like: kidneys, intestinal tract, and lymph nodes, and even
leading to the death of the infected person.
For the treatment to
be effective, patients must take their prescribed dugs during all the
period of time they were advised by the doctor, otherwise the bacillus
could get multiple drug resistant and this would only lead to a crisis
of effective drugs against tuberculosis, and to a possible epidemic.
