Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection which is air-borne making it easily transferrable from a sufferer to one who was not initially affected, tuberculosis based on standard facts from the WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO), is one of the top ten causes of death in the world. Seeing this, Healthvim would like to take you on a tour on all you should know relating to tuberculosis. Hope you are ready???.
In the year 2018, based on WHO statistics, ten million people got down with the tuberculosis infection, of which 1.5 million persons died due to the infection. The bacteria responsible for the tuberculosis infection is known as "Mycobacterium Tuberculosis", it was discovered by Robert Koch. This bacteria affects the lungs and replicates there, though it also gets to infect other parts of the body such as the spine in which case it would cause pain in the back, it at times gets to affect the kidney where it disrupts the filtration process and lead to the release of urine with blood in it. Since it basically affects the lungs, if a sufferer is to then cough,sneeze,spit,laughs,shouts e.t.c, the tuberculosis bacteria is then released into the air or environment, if one who was not initially affected is close by and then inhales the bacteria into his system, such a person stood the chance of getting to suffer from the tuberculosis infection, now you understand why it is termed an "Air-Borne Disease". When the infection was first diagnosed in the year 1985, very few remedies were available then, but now it is no longer news that tuberculosis is now preventable and curable. Treatment involves taking antibiotics which could span for some weeks though but who cares how long when survival is at a very high percentage. But at a particular point, with the constant application of antibiotics for the treatment of the tuberculosis infection, some strains of the bacteria became resistant to these antibiotics and passed this trait to their off-springs thereby breeding a new set of the infection called "Multi-drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB)", this actually caught the attention of health experts as special drugs that are not readily available were used to attend to such cases, but the regular tuberculosis could be taken care of with the usual antibiotics. The Tuberculosis infection could be categorized into two;
- LATENT TUBERCULOSIS - in this category, the bacteria remains in a dormant form in the body of the individual and does not lead to the exhibition of symptoms, this type is not contagious and a quarter of the world population is infected with it. But if there is a compromise in the immune system of such individuals such as one due to HIV,malnutrition,diabetes e.t.c the tuberculosis could develop into the second category known as the -
- ACTIVE TUBERCULOSIS - this is the group that is contagious and manifests with some unfriendly symptoms which would be discussed later.
SYMPTOMS
One would probably want to know the signs to watch out for to be able to detect the presence of the bacteria,some of the symptoms associated with the active TB includes;
- Cough with blood and could last for over 3 weeks.
- Chills.
- Fever.
- Loss of weight.
- Night sweats.
- Loss of appetite.
COMPLICATIONS
complications of the tuberculosis bacteria includes;
- TB arthritis at the joints
- Meningitis
- Back pain/pain at the spine
- Disorder in the physiology of the liver,kidney and the heart.
PREVENTION
The Bacillus Calmette-Guerin(BCG), is a vaccine against the tuberculosis infection and this vaccine is only for children and not for adult.
TREATMENT
It could be treated with drugs like isoniazid,rifampin,amikacin,capastat e.t.c
Hope you were enlightened,always remember that at Healthvim, your health is our pride.
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