Tuberculosis (TB): Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment

There was a time when there used to be epidemics of tuberculosis.

It was a major health issue all over the world. But recently now, awareness of the tuberculosis and active management and education, and most important, you know, now there’s a dramatic sanitation improvement and now there is a vaccination also for tuberculosis. And WHO has declared 24th March as the World Tuberculosis Day.

So to further increase the, I mean, the awareness of tuberculosis or TB, everybody knows about it. Everybody probably knows several years before it was such an issue. So, you know, it could, it can be, usually it’s a lung infection, tuberculosis, and usually it’s transmitted by, if you’re close to the person, by cough, inhalation.

And also sometimes milk is also contaminated by tuberculosis virus. So it used to be in the past, but now that pasteurization of the milk is universal. So milk is no longer another source of tuberculosis.

So it is, we all know TB bacteria, I mean, it’s a, the name is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. So it is a bacteria and you have, whenever you develop, you know, you have cough, you have a productive sputum, there may be blood in it, you may have fever. Whenever you have this infection, fever, night sweats, tired, you know, feeling tired, and you can diagnose, you can diagnose by, you can diagnose, I mean, usually we all get, you know, used to get a skin test and you can diagnose by x-ray also.

And we can also collect this sputum and send for the testing. You can look under microscope, you can see the bacteria and then you can send it for further testing also. So, so now, usually our body is really, I mean, our, our immunity is really very protective.

Most of us have a good immunity and then, you know, we can minimize, you know, tuberculosis infection. But in the people who immunity is weak because of the cancer or taking some, some medicine which suppress your immunity, then risk of tuberculosis is high. You know, I believe doctors try to put you on prevention medicine or they are, they educate their patients about, before starting such medication, they make their patients aware of what can happen with the decreased immunity.

So, usually, once we diagnose, the treatment requires a combination of medicines and we usually have to treat long term, let’s say, it really takes a long time, six to nine months. Used to be around two years, but now it comes down to six to nine months. So, we need just to be aware of this.

We should absolutely, you know, sanitation should be good. Wash our hands. We should, we are not feeling good.

We are having a cough and we suspect some lung infection, etc. We should wear a mask. We should maintain our distance.

Should not be, you know, stand too close to the person. So, so, you know, with all the awareness, it is becoming, as far as I can, we used to see so many tuberculosis cases back in India 20-25 years ago, but not anymore. So, just to make you guys, you know, aware of tuberculosis and the, you should diagnose as soon as possible.

It is treatable, yes, once you know. So, just to increase your awareness