Thank you for reaching out to Dallas County Health and Human Services(DCHHS). In response to your inquiry, DCHHS is unaware of an increased incidence of Tuberculosis among Square Cottage residents. In the event as such, DCHHS would not disclose a specific location due to medical confidentiality and personal privacy reasons. Overall, DCHHS has shown that the number of annual TB cases have decreased by 37% from 1993 to 2015 in Dallas County. In regards to homelessness specifically, I can confirm the proportion of TB cases occurring in persons experiencing homelessness has increased since 2014. Please note, homeless individuals are disproportionately affected by Tuberculosis in Dallas County as well as the United States. In an effort
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious killer worldwide. However, over 95% of TB deaths occur in developing countries (WHO). TB is found to be a curable disease when appropriate medications and treatment are taken. Using the biomedical system is not sufficient to eradicate TB because medical interventions will fail if social determinates aren’t taken into considerations. The biomedical system is a key component in diminishing TB because it allows for diagnosis and control. Social determinants of health play a huge role in shaping one’s health. Three main social determinants that acts as a barrier in curing and preventing TB are income, food insecurity and access to health care.
without fear of deportation, he exhorted, "You can come out of the shadows. But they can’t, while the U.S. is experiencing the expansion of health care access with the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This plan excluded about eleven million people who are in the country illegally. Nations with a lower social economic status are being greatly affected by the TB agent and do not have the resources available to people in the United States. According to World Health Organization (WHO): TB is the second greatest killer due to a single infectious agent in other nations, in 2012, 15% of the reported cases of TB resulted in death. TB is the third-leading cause of death for women ages 15-44 in low- and middle-income nations and the hardest hit by this disease are patients with compromised immune systems and elderly patients.
The tuberculosis in the United States increased by 20 percent between 1985 and 1992 due to the following reasons: “(1) Inadequate funding for TB control and other public health efforts, (2) the HIV epidemic, (3) increased immigration from countries where TB is common, (4) the spread of TB in certain settings (for example, correctional facilities and homeless shelters), and (5) the spread of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR TB)” (CDC). Meanwhile, as what is evident in Dr. Trudeau’s experiment, the factors for Tuberculosis to thrive are due to inadequate-lacks-in-nutritional-value food supply, and poor environmental conditions. In like manner, incarcerated populations resemble that situation. Thus, one of the many reasons that TB can be higher in prisons, is that most prisons are not kept that clean and sanitary. Even though they may sweep and mop thinking they are getting rid of TB, there is a form of Tuberculosis called latent TB which lie dormant for days or even many years that can actually reactivate (CDC), and spread the disease between prisoners. A second reason that TB is high in prisons is due to overcrowding. The prisoners are in such close proximity of each other on a daily basis, that there is no way of separating themselves from getting TB. A third reason, the prisoners could have easily gotten Tuberculosis from each other due to small areas. Since some forms of Tuberculosis is spread by airborne droplets (Mayo Clinic) it would make sense why prisoners get it so much easier. Other factors in
The progress of tuberculosis infected more people over the years. The rate of Inuits being infected with tuberculosis still continues to be high and has gotten higher, the amount of Inuits infected by latent tuberculosis has increased, but the rate of latent turning to active tuberculosis has decreased because some Iqaluit's died from it.(1). Iqaluit has the most case and highest rate of tuberculosis in Canada(2). The reason why these cases are still high is because the health system is not so great in Iqaluit and functions very poorly. Because the nurses or doctors in Iqaluit who don’t diagnose patients quickly or a mislead on diagnosis. Also tuberculosis is high in Iqaluit is because the housing is often overcrowded which would enable the infections to spread by air. Lack of food is also a problem followed up with security and access to health care are part of the factors why tuberculosis is high in Iqaluit.(4)
Canada has had many events where tuberculosis was having an outbreak in 1924 through 1948, but since then it has been decreasing. We have dealt with this problem back in 2012 where an outbreak of tuberculosis infected 8% of the individuals in the extremely small Northern Quebec community of Kangiqsualujjuaq. After the outbreak The Public Health Agency of Canada is running over to discover the origin of the outburst its spread. Officials are also bringing up more additional resources to the place, such as a mobile x-ray machine. Tuberculosis is a disease caused by bacteria that travel from person to person. A person who is infected with tuberculosis, but does not show any symptoms at all may have dormant tuberculosis and can still transmit
Little was known about treatment and prevention of the disease at that time. It was not until 1953 that the United States began collecting data and reports on the 84,304 new cases of TB. This data could be used in research. TB was recognized as a preventable deadly disease, and a common goal to eradicate TB was adopted. Over the next 32 years, the new TB cases dropped 74%. By 1985, there were only 22,201 TB cases. History notes that law makers and public health officials became complacent and thought they had found the solution for eradicating TB. Resources for TB surveillance, prevention, and treatment options were reduced, while homeless numbers increased. This changed history as from 1985 to 1992 TB rates started to increase. Data collected from demographic regions and surveillance records show TB cases rose by 20% in those seven years to equal new 26,673 cases, and the estimated number of TB cases (old and new cases together) during that time was more than 64,000 cases. This was the last recorded peek in TB history. Since 1992, there has been a decrease of 67% in all TB cases. Studies reflect this decrease from 10.5 to 3.4 per 100,000 persons. Much credit for this continued decline is attributed to state and federal aid in addition to the state and local programs aimed at fighting TB and the helping the homeless population. Continued public education, proactive surveillance,
Throughout the past six years, two outbreaks of tuberculosis occurred within the homeless population in the city of Toronto. With intensive care management and contact follow-up partnership with City of Toronto Shelter, Support and housing Administration Division, shelter staff, TB clinics, the provincial public health laboratory and community partners, the Toronto Public Health (TBH) was able to effectively manage these outbreaks (Toronto Public Health, 2016). TBH created a program to help homeless shelters, and drop-in operators apply the correct protocols to essentially reduce TB transmission risk by enforcing environmental control measures (Toronto Public Health, 2016). Similarly, implementing Florence Nightingale’s theories, found in the novel Notes on Nursing, developed an imperative understanding that the patients’ wellbeing is dependent on their surrounding environment. City of Toronto TB program for the under-housed, homeless and correctional population with tuberculosis, is based on Florence Nightingale’s theories of providing ventilation and warming, maintain cleanliness of rooms and walls, and ensuring observation of the sick.
There has been renewed interest of late in reaching the 3 million individuals with active TB infection each year who currently fall between the cracks in TB control efforts. There were programmes such as the Stop TB Partnership’s TB REACH initiative have been at the forefront of strategies to identify hard-to-reach populations through the scale-up of ACF for TB. While a body of literature has emerged examining the effectiveness of various ACF approaches, the acceptability of ACF has, to date, received scant attention. Using participation rates as a proxy for acceptability, support for ACF is generally presumed to be high; however, participation rates alone are of limited value in understanding the optimal applications of ACF and informing policy change. Our study is one of the first to systematically explore the perspectives of patients and health providers engaged in community-based ACF. Findings suggest a high level of acceptability for home-based ACF across key stakeholders, including TB patients, village health volunteers, community TB workers, and public sector providers.
Reflecting back upon the debates about reporting tuberculosis and upon the case of Typhoid Mary, the most important lessons we can learn are about the overall impact of disease. While technology has improved our knowledge on diseases, in some ways it has also limited our view of them. We can focus too much on the bacteriology, and not enough on the other social and political factors that affect the entire disease experience. Mary Mallon taught us that there are methods of controlling a disease that do not involve simply containing patients—patients can be integrated into society successfully if they are given the training and instruction to do so. Meanwhile debates regarding the registration of patients with tuberculosis show a developing
Since 1918, high prevalence of tobacco use has been identified as a risk factor for tuberculosis. (Webb G. B., 1918) It was much debated later and only recently the association has been given widespread attention by undertaking different kind of studies. Many studies have confirmed exposure to tobacco smoke as one of the risk factor for TB outcomes, after taking in to consideration, other confounder risk factors like socioeconomic status, alcohol use etc.
Tuberculosis has been a persistent threat to the human race as far back as Hippocrates (c.460-c.370 BC). Globally, tuberculosis has infected millions during waves, often killing scores of people at a time, and then receding giving it an almost supernatural quality (Daniel, 2006). In recent history tuberculosis has been recorded in all corners of the world, and currently infects one third of the global population. In 2012, TB was responsible for killing 1.3 million people, making it the second largest fatal disease next to AIDS. The purpose of this paper is to describe tuberculosis, explain contributing factors, describe the disease in relation to the epidemiologic triangle, and finally
With approximately 1.5 million tuberculosis (TB) cases China would have the second highest affliction after India. This would cause the GDD Program to incorporate TB into its mission in China. The goal was to provide strategic technical assistance and training for TB control including viable research on drug rebellious TB. China also needed to work on controlling the infection and strengthening their laboratory.
India, the second most populous country with over 1.31 billion people, has the highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) in the world, accounting for 20% of the global incidence of TB, and an even higher share of global incidence of multi–drug resistant (MDR) TB. With an estimated 2 million new cases of TB and 5, 00,000 TB-related deaths in India annually, those who got diagnosed with different forms of DR-TB were 35,385 cases but only 20,753 people started on multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) treatment in 2013. The National Tuberculosis Program was launched in 1962, but suffered heavily continuing TB led mortality. Acknowledging this reality, a Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) was launched by the Government of India in 1997, however even today it does not comply with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations.
As mentioned in the previous section, high TB notification rates in Hong Kong every year reveals the severity, reported statistics from CHP (CHP, 2016). Though there are decreasing TB notification cases, TB still puts pressure on Hong Kong’s citizens. In 1939, around 4,500 TB deaths report before the invasion by Japan, which made TB become a notifiable disease (DH, 2006). During the World War II, the unstable social conditions, poor nutrition, and serious overcrowding in Hong Kong increased the number of cases who died from TB (DH, 2006). As a result, with the influx of refugee from Mainland China, TB became the top killer in Hong Kong (DH, 2006). In 1940-1950, the Hong Kong Government and the Hong Kong Anti-Tuberculosis Association created plans for TB control services, after the development in anti-TB drugs and provided services for TB patients (DH, 2006). TB notification rate and death rate of Hong Kong reached its peak in 1951-1952 when prevention and treatment of TB was not yet commonly use (CHP, 2016). Afterwards, the usage of streptomycin and the BCG injection to newborn babies and schoolchildren decreased the amount of notification rate and death rate (DH, 2006). However, some TB patients had difficulties to complete the anti-TB treatment. Therefore, Directly Observed Treatment (DOT) was considered. The death rate of TB dropped dynamically to less than 1,500 cases after the usage of the DOT in 1970 (WHO, 2016). After 21st century, the new cases of TB dropped to less