Tuberculosis : A Leading Cause Of Infectious Lung Disease Essay

Tuberculosis has long been a disease that the human culture has been dealing with which entails significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. With dealing with such a horrific disease over the years, discoveries and evolution on the appropriate ways to contain, diagnose, and challengingly treat the disease has changed. One of the most concerning complications of this worldwide public health issue is the ability for it to quickly spread in high populated areas while becoming ever more resistant to forms of treatment not available in all locations around the world. This is a serious public

Tuberculosis is a deadly disease that is now affecting our world and the people living in it in a horrible way. Due to many factors such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, and lack of health care, many third world and developing countries have been left very vulnerable to tuberculosis. It is affecting a large part of these countries and is leading them deeper into poverty and sickness. The effort to help these countries against tuberculosis has only been slightly effective against this widespread and destructive disease.

Tuberculosis, the white plague as used to be called once upon a time is still one of the deadliest bacterial killers affecting almost all parts, all corners of the globe. Though successful anti-tubercular antibiotic regimens and effective vaccine are available for decades and being used in the battle against Koch’s bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of this chronic multi organ granulomatous disease, our strand in the battle continuously seems to be in the losing side. Moreover the increasing prevalence of HIV-AIDS and diabetes mellitus is being proved to be providing predisposition to tuberculosis. As witnessed by the WHO, which has estimated that, in the year 2012, 8.6 million people have developed tuberculosis and 1.3 million have died of the disease including 320000 deaths of HIV-TB co-infected people (Global tuberculosis report 2013. World Health Organization; 2013). Long term antibiotic therapy and that too associated with several side effects and discomforts have diminished patient compliance with the anti-tubercular chemotherapy. This fact in turn has raised the new deadlier MDR-TB and XDR-TB strains. The whole scenario is a matter of panic and questioning the effectiveness of anti-tubercular antibiotics, immunologic efficacy of century old BCG vaccine and all other medical advents.

Tuberculosis is caused by the bacteria “Mycobacterium Tuberculosis” and is mainly causes infection of the lungs (WHO, 2016). Its mode of transmission is airborne, so it can be passed on by inhalation of airborne droplets which carrying the bacteria, when an infected patient coughs, sneezes, or spits the TB germs into the air (WHO, 1026). Among the symptoms of active TB are: cough with sputum and blood, chest pains, weakness, fever and night sweats (WHO, 2016). Most at risk to get the TB infection are people with weakened immune system such as people who are suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus, severe kidney disease, silicosis and especially HIV infection (CDC, 2016). Children and Tobacco users are also at greater risk to fall ill with TB.

According to the World Health Organization, tuberculosis (TB) is the number two killer worldwide due to a single infectious agent (WHO, 2017). In 2015, 10.4 million new cases have been identified and 1.8 million people have died from this disease (WHO, 2017). TB is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium TB, and the majority of TB deaths occur in low and middle-income countries. This disease is curable and preventable, but the lack of access to proper healthcare and medication administration makes it a concern for the most of the world’s population. TB is an airborne disease that can transmit when an infected person coughs, sneezes, spits, laughs, or talks. The majority of TB cases can be cured when the right medications are available and

Tuberculosis is a disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis that most commonly affects the lungs. The etiologic agent can be expelled from one infected person via a sneeze or a cough, and enter the air and then the body of another person, leading to another infected person (“Tuberculosis, 2012). According to “What is TB?” (n.d.), someone who has diagnosed tuberculosis but is not receiving any form of treatment can pass the disease to up to 15 people in on year. Treatment of TB is necessary, so if symptoms are ignored, an infected person could die. Prevalence of this disease is not as common in the United States as it is in other countries. In 2014, there were approximately 9,421 reported cases; trends show that TB prevalence continues to decreases each year. Of

Despite the accessibility of inexpensive and successful treatment, tuberculosis still accounts for millions of cases of active disease and deaths worldwide. The disease unreasonably has an effect on the neediest persons in both high-income and developing countries. However, recent improvements in diagnostics, drugs, vaccines and enhanced implementation of present interventions have increased the outlooks for enhanced clinical care and global tuberculosis restriction.

The bacteria that cause tuberculosis is an airborne infection and it is spread through inhalation of droplet nuclei that contain the organism. This occurs when the infected person coughs, sneezes, or speaks. The symptoms of tuberculosis are two types respiratory and non-respiratory, but the most important symptoms are cough with or without blood, weight loss, night sweat, and fever.

Tuberculosis ranks as the second leading cause of death from a single infectious agent as per the 2014 WHO report and continues as a global health problem. Global Emergency was declared by WHO against tuberculosis in March 1993. As per the WHO 2015 report 9.6 million were affected with TB globally and 1.5 million people died in 2014. India reported 23% of total cases globally with highest prevalence rate of 195 per 105 populations. In the total 9.6 million new cases of TB 1.2 million cases were HIV positive. India is one among the top ten countries reported with MDR and XDR-TB. The etiological agent Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an Acid-fast bacillus which is spread by air borne droplets and aerosols and infects most commonly the lungs

Tuberculosis (TB) is the disease of the lung caused by a slow-growing intracellular pathogen called Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) (1). In 2014, there were 9.6 million cases of active TB disease worldwide, and 1.2 million TB-related deaths according to World Health Organization (WHO) (2). The burden of the disease can be appreciated with the knowledge that one third of the world population is latently infected with M.tb, and 5-10% of exposed individuals develop active disease and are able to spread the infection to more people every year (3,1). To reduce this burden, effective strategies are required in both preventative and therapeutic areas of research.

For many people in the U.S. tuberculosis represents a disease process that one rarely sees. For this reason the reality of tuberculosis outside of the U.S. can easily be lost. CDC statistics report that approximately one third of the world 's population is infected with tuberculosis.1 This can be a sobering statistic for an individual wholly removed from the idea that tuberculosis, abbreviated TB, remains a prominent disease process throughout much of the world. The objective will be to provide not just an informative description of the disease, it 's etiology, clinical manifestations, treatments, and prognosis, but also to provide a reminder that tuberculosis retains a significant presence in the world despite the early

Ministries of Health, states there is still an increase of number of cases of tuberculosis diagnosed each year in New Zealand, approximately 300 cases. Tuberculosis is known to be one of the oldest disease among humans and today is one of the leading causes infection and death in adults. According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2016) about one-third of the world’s population is suffering with this disease at present even though there are vaccine widely available. Though there is still a high morbidity rate in some countries every year. Africa, Western and Southeast Asia are the most affected areas, making approximately 86 percent of tuberculosis cases in the world.

Tuberculosis reemerged in the United States and other developed countries in the mid-1980s, fueled by the HIV epidemic and its resistance to multiple antibiotics. That resurgence was eventually quelled again in the developed world. However, in Southeast Asia, the Western Pacific region, and Africa, a multidrug-resistant TB epidemic is raging. Worldwide, 2 billion people-nearly one –third of the world’s population are currently infected. The cause of tuberculosis is primarily the bacterial species Myobacterium tuberculosis, informally called the tubercle bacillus.

Tuberculosis is among the fatal diseases that are spread through the air. It’s contagious, meaning that it spreads from one infected individual to another, and at times it spreads very fast. In addition to being contagious, the disease is an opportunist infection as it takes advantage of those with weak defense mechanism, and especially the ones with terminal diseases like HIV and AIDS. Tuberculosis is therefore among the major concerns for the World Health Organization due to its contagious nature (World Health Organization 1).

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.