Tuberculosis : A Clear And Present Danger By Lowth Essay

Tuberculosis is a disease of an infectious nature caused by a bacterium known as mycobacterium tuberculosis. The disease spreads through the air. People with the disease can spread it to susceptible people through coughing, sneezing, talking or spitting. It mainly affects the lungs and other parts such as the lymph nodes and kidneys can also be affected. The symptoms for TB are fatigue, coughing, night sweats, weight loss and fever. One third of the population of the world is affected with mycobacterium tuberculosis. The rate of infection is estimated to be one person per second. About 14 million people in the world are infected with active tuberculosis. Drug resistant TB has been recorded to be a serious public health hazard in many countries. Resistant strains have developed making it difficult to treat the disease. TB has caused millions of death mainly in people living with HIV/AIDS ADDIN EN.CITE Ginsberg19981447(Ginsberg, 1998)1447144717Ginsberg, Ann M.The Tuberculosis Epidemic: Scientific Challenges and OpportunitiesPublic Health Reports (1974-)Public Health Reports (1974-)128-13611321998Association of Schools of Public Health00333549http://www.jstor.org/stable/4598234( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_3" o "Ginsberg, 1998 #1447" Ginsberg, 1998). The World Health Organization came up with the DOTS (Directly Observed, Therapy, Short course) strategy. The approach involves diagnosing cases and treating patients with drugs for about 6-8

Tuberculosis is a disease that affects many individuals throughout the world, and not always with the same prevalence rates. For this research paper my goal is to explain and illustrate why certain populations tend to have higher infection rates of tuberculosis than the average population in the United States and what causes these higher rates. At what point do health officials step in and work on prevention in these specific populations and why are we not implementing the tuberculosis shot for these populations?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2014, 9.6 million Americans were infected with the Tuberculosis (TB) disease. Over the years many programs and initiatives have been implemented to decrease the occurrences of TB disease in America. As long individuals are educated on the prevention of tuberculosis fatal complications can be prevented through early treatment. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the description of Tuberculosis and the demographic of interest, determinants of health and how determinants contribute to the development of Tuberculosis, epidemiologic triangle, role of the community health nurse, and the World Health Organization that works to address

Tuberculosis(TB) is a highly contagious disease that primarily affects the lungs, although it can also be found in other body parts. The disorder is caused by a bacteria called myocardial tuberculosis, and is mostly spread through the air when an infected person coughs. Many years ago, tuberculosis accounted for nearly 30% of deaths in the US. In the 1940’s and 50’s, however, its fatality rate dropped significantly due to antibiotics and vaccinations. Since the outbreak of AIDS, tuberculosis has increasingly been an issue again since people with the disease cannot fight off TB (Bontrager & Lampignano 2005, Basic TB Facts 2012).

Tuberculosis, a disease responsible for millions of deaths and has been affecting people since Aristotle’s and Hippocrates’s eras to the present day (Frith, 2014a). Tuberculosis has surged in great epidemics and then receded, Mycobacterium tuberculosis may have killed more persons than any other microbial pathogen (Frith, 2014a). Tuberculosis is an infection by the “bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis which invades the lungs” (Saladin, 2015) and other parts of the body. Tuberculosis is a contagious disease and when left untreated it is fatal (Kalo et al., 2015). “Although [tuberculosis] is a preventable and treatable disease…it still poses a significant threat globally” due to drug resistant strains of the disease (Kalo et al., 2015). Millions of people have contracted Tuberculosis, many now suffering from the drug resistant Tuberculosis, and millions have died from this disease (Kalo et al, 2015).

Tuberculosis, or more commonly TB, is a chronic infection caused by the rod- shaped bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Furlan, Silva, & Marcon, 2014). This bacterium was discovered by Dr. Robert Koch in 1882, and since its discovery, TB has continued to be one of the leading cause of human mortality in the world (Cambau, & Drancourt, 2014). Regrettably, over 1/3 of the world’s populace has tuberculosis (CDC, 2016a). This grim statistic makes it very difficult to contain each occurrence of tuberculosis. This is one of the issues surrounding the disease today. Furthermore, vaccines like the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine, exists for Tuberculosis; however, its effectiveness is dependent on region, genetic differences in the

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an infectious disease of particular interest because although it affects a large portion of the world’s population, there is unfamiliarity with the secretion of M.tuberculosis virulence.

Tuberculosis, also known as (TB) has been around for decades and is still active across the globe. It was a huge threat to Europe and America in The 19th century. Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. An individual can become infected with the disease while breathing in the bacteria that is spread through the air droplets when a person coughs or speaks. TB mainly affects the lungs, however, it can attack other organs also. Tuberculosis can be fatal if not treated promptly. “There is paleopathological evidence that Tuberculosis has been around 8000 BCE and evidence of bony tuberculosis has been found dating from the Neolithic period in 5800 BCE and in Egyptian mummies dating to 2400 BCE” (Riello et al., 2016).

Tuberculosis (TB) continue to be a major public health problem world wide (Lönnroth, Migliori, Abubakar, D’Ambrosio, de Vries, Diel,…Raviglione, 2015). Approximately one-third of the worlds population is infected with the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis and are at risk for developing TB. The WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2017 reported an astounding 10.4 million cases of confirmed TB and an estimated 1.8 million TB related death worldwide in 2016. Unfortunately, 95 percent of the global TB pandemic are in low- and middle-income countries where there is a lack of resources to combat or appropriately address such issue.

In 2011, there were about 8.7 million new cases, including 1.1 million cases among people living with HIV (WHO, 2013). Tuberculosis is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide due to a single infectious agent and over 95% of TB deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (WHO, 2013). Resistant strains to known drug regimens have developed and the disease continues to be a global health challenge, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many researches have been conducted over time on the disease tuberculosis and the causative organism M. tuberculosis, all in a bid to understand the disease, its

This paper will address the description of Tuberculosis (TB), a communicable disease, the determinants of health and how these factors contribute to the development of this disease, the epidemiologic triangle as it relates to Tuberculosis, the role of the community health nurse and how one national agency contributes to resolving or reducing the impact of this disease.

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the oldest diseases known to mankind, that despite the great achievements of human society still remains a major health problem. Because due to the socioeconomic problems and negligence in the treatment of tuberculosis, as well as HIV epidemy, in many countries there are a large number of smear positive patients often remain undiagnosed. On the other hand, patients' failure to visit a physician after initiation of complaints, Lack of timely diagnosis and treatment by a physician, inadequate treatment, improper administration of anti-TB drugs, patients' financial problems in preparing medications, and patients' inadequate information about their disease status and discontinuation the medication can lead to the creation of drug-resistant cases of TB. Since 1993, World Health Organization has accepted the Directly Observed Treatment, Short course (DOTS) as a global strategy for TB control. It is estimated that each year about 10-8 million people become infected with TB and 3-2 million people die annually due to this disease. The World Health Organization has declared tuberculosis a global emergency and has recommended efforts to control the disease. Tuberculosis is considered as an endemic and common disease in east mediterranean countries. Because of Iran proximity to Pakistan and Afghanistan (which are among most contaminated regions in the world), our country is at serious risk of this disease. TB epidemiological indicators are:

One-forth of this world’s people are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is the reason of virtually millions of deaths all over the world every year. This ratio is more than the deaths caused by any other pathogen. From the start of the twentieth century, tuberculosis has become a relatively uncommon disease instead of the most common reason of deaths worldwide [1-3]. The incidence of tuberculosis has waned in the developed countries. The World Health Organization reports that more than ten million cases and two to three million deaths occur annually due to tuberculosis [5]. By another estimate, it is said that at least one billion persons are infected with M. tuberculosis worldwide [6].

Over 15 years ago, the World Health Organization set a goal to halt and reverse the incidence of tuberculosis. Millennium Development Goal #6 is combat diseases like Malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis. The international community has worked together using preventative and treatment measures in efforts to reach this goal and eradicating diseases. While tuberculosis is a quickly spreading and multifaceted disease, the goal has had to adapt to the changing nature of the disease. Factors such as education, economics, and technology play important roles in eradicating tuberculosis across the world (Skolnik, 2012). While there is an extremely low prevalence of tuberculosis in developed countries, tuberculosis runs rampant and is harder to reach and combat in poorer and developing countries, particularly sub-saharan Africa and south-east Asia. Tuberculosis is one of the infectious diseases health experts and advocates are working to eliminate. Additionally, they hope to improve health access and reduce health disparities to prevent the spread of future infectious disease.

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.