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What is Tuberculosis (TB)? -

Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease that affects mostly the lungs. The name of the bacterium is Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb).

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What is TB? -

The cause of tuberculosis was discovered in 1882 by German physician and microbiologist Dr. Robert Koch.

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Two types of TB -

A person can be infected by the TB bacteria but not become sick. There are two types of TB-related conditions.

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Two types of TB -

You can have a latent TB infection (LTBI), or active TB disease. The latter will make you sick and be fatal.

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How does it spread? -

TB spreads from person to person through the air, similar to COVID-19.

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How does it spread? -

It usually spreads via coughing, sneezing, or other contact with droplets.

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Symptoms -

While latent TB will cause no symptoms, an active TB disease usually causes heavy coughing (and might include coughing up blood).

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Symptoms -

Other common symptoms include fever, chest pain, fatigue, night sweats, chills, loss of appetite, and weight loss.

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Symptoms -

TB can also affect other areas outside your lungs, such as your kidneys, spine, or brain.

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Symptoms -

Depending where the bacteria spreads, you can have different symptoms, including back pain or blood in your urine.

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Who’s more at risk? -

People with a weakened immune system are particularly vulnerable to the disease. Those who suffer from HIV, undernutrition, substance abuse, or are undergoing cancer treatment, such as chemotherapy, are more at risk.

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Who’s more at risk? -

People who live or work in high-risk areas must be extra careful. These include healthcare workers who deal with TB patients.

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HIV and TB -

Those with HIV are 18 times more likely to develop TB due to their weakened immune system. In 2022, about 167,000 people with HIV died of TB.

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Undernutrition -

In 2022, 2.2 million new TB cases were linked to undernutrition alone.

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Areas most affected by TB -

In 2022, 46% of new cases of TB occurred in the Southeast Asia region, followed by Africa with 23% of new cases, and lastly the Western Pacific region, with 18%.

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Treatment -

TB is treated with specific antibiotics. The inappropriate use of anti-TB medicines, however, have led to drug-resistant TB strains.

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Multidrug-resistant TB -

The bacteria that causes multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) does not respond to commonly used drugs to treat TB, such as isoniazid and rifampicin. Though some second-line anti-TB drugs can be effective.

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Multidrug-resistant TB -

In 2019, there were over 206,000 people with drug-resistant TB. Considering the overall number of people with TB, those who contracted MDR-TB are still a minority.

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Multidrug-resistant TB -

The majority of cases are focused in three countries: India, China, and Russia.

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Vaccine -

It took 13 years of research before French bacteriologists Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin created the vaccine against tuberculosis in 1921.

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Vaccine -

One hundred years on, the Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine helped save millions of lives over the years.

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Vaccine -

The vaccine is not compulsory in every country, though it is usually administered to people in high-risk nations.

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Millions of people still die of TB every year -

TB is one of the top causes of death worldwide. In 2022 alone it killed 1.3 million people.

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Men are more affected -

In 2022, 5.8 million men were infected with the disease, but 3.5 million women were also infected. And so were 1.3 million children.

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These countries account for two thirds of the total of TB patients -

India is on top, followed by Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and South Africa.

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Cases are decreasing -

Despite the high numbers, cases of TB around the world have been decreasing since 2015.

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Mortality is decreasing -

TB mortality rate has dropped by 42% since the year 2000.

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UN target -

One of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end the TB epidemic by 2030.

Sources: (WHO) (Mayo Clinic) (CDC) 

See also: Disease X: The next pandemic?

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