World Tu­ber­cu­lo­sis (TB) Day is cel­e­brat­ed on March 24th an­nu­al­ly to raise pub­lic aware­ness about the dev­as­tat­ing health, so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­se­quences of TB. It is al­so com­mem­o­rat­ed in an ef­fort to end the glob­al TB epi­dem­ic. March 24th marks the date in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch made the an­nounce­ment that he dis­cov­ered the bac­teri­um that caus­es TB, herald­ing the way to­wards di­ag­nos­ing and cur­ing this dis­ease.

TB re­mains the world’s dead­liest in­fec­tious killer. Over 4000 die dai­ly due to TB and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30,000 peo­ple con­tract this pre­ventable and cur­able dis­ease. This year the theme, “It’s Time” has been adopt­ed to ur­gent­ly ac­cel­er­ate the re­sponse to sav­ing lives and end­ing suf­fer­ing from TB.

TB is a con­ta­gious in­fec­tion that usu­al­ly at­tacks your lungs but can spread to oth­er parts of your body like your brain and spine. The bac­te­ria called My­cobac­teri­um tu­ber­cu­lo­sis caus­es it. To­day, most cas­es are cured with an­tibi­otics. How­ev­er, the treat­ment is for at least six to nine months.

If you have TB, you may not have any symp­toms be­cause the bac­te­ria can live in your body with­out mak­ing you sick. This is re­ferred to as “la­tent TB”. “Ac­tive TB” is when the bac­te­ria starts to mul­ti­ply and you start to show symp­toms of the dis­ease. Symp­toms in­clude a bad cough that lasts 3 weeks or more, chest pain, cough­ing up blood or mu­cus, feel­ing very weak or tired, un­ex­plained weight loss, chills, fever, sweat­ing at nights, hav­ing no ap­petite.

It may sound like a dis­ease of the past but TB is still a present day con­cern. As the old say­ing goes, “an ounce of pre­ven­tion is worth a pound of cure.” In oth­er words, don’t get sick. Avoid con­tact with per­sons with ac­tive dis­ease as it can spread through the air. Those with ac­tive TB dis­ease are ad­vised to stay at home away from oth­er peo­ple un­til they are no longer in­fec­tious. In par­tic­u­lar, peo­ple with weak­ened im­mune sys­tems, like young chil­dren, the el­der­ly and peo­ple with HIV. Per­sons with ac­tive TB must seek im­me­di­ate med­ical at­ten­tion for ur­gent treat­ment. If you have “la­tent TB” you can­not spread the dis­ease to oth­ers but you may be re­quired to con­tin­ue med­ica­tions to pre­vent the dis­ease from be­com­ing ac­tive. Take all your med­ica­tions, al­ways cov­er your mouth with a tis­sue when you cough or sneeze, seal the tis­sue in a plas­tic bag and throw it away, wash your hands af­ter cough­ing or sneez­ing, stay at home, use a fan or open win­dows to move around fresh air, do not use pub­lic trans­porta­tion are some steps to be tak­en to pre­vent the spread of TB.

In coun­tries with high rates of TB in­fec­tion, in­fants are of­ten giv­en the vac­cine. Health pro­fes­sion­als who spend a lot of time around TB pa­tients might ben­e­fit from the vac­cine. With the prop­er treat­ment, TB is al­most al­ways cur­able. Doc­tors pre­scribe an­tibi­otics to kill the bac­te­ria that cause it. Med­ica­tion may have to be tak­en for up to nine months de­pend­ing on the per­son’s re­sponse to med­ica­tion.

Dr. Ray­mala Ma­haraj

M.B.B.S (U.W.I)

Fam­i­ly Med­ical Prac­tice & Women’s Well­ness Clin­ic