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Tuberculosis As A Communicable Disease

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Tuberculosis, also identified as TB, has been around for countless years. In the past, however, the disease was not known, which made it untreatable in most healthcare settings. The evolution of time made it possible to easily detect and manage tuberculosis before people were adversely affected by it. It is a disease that often affects an individual’s lungs, but it can also affect other body parts. The spine, kidneys, bones, and even the lymph nodes may sometimes be affected by the disease. The spread is usually from one person with the disease to an uninfected person through the air. Whenever individuals with the TB disease cough, laugh, or even talk, the disease is spread through tiny droplets that are found in the person’s respiratory …show more content…

A high number of people in the United States are infected, which indicates that they have the potential to contract the disease in the future. For people with the disease, it is often as a result of the infection becoming active. In this case, the person may have symptoms that are either pulmonary (in the lungs), or extrapulmonary (outside the lungs) (Lozano, 2012). There are signs and symptoms to look out for when it comes to the TB disease. Some of the general signs include; fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, chills, and fever. When the disease affects an individual’s pulmonary system, some of the symptoms that may result include; chronic chest pain and an incessant cough that often produces sputum accompanied with blood. In other rare cases, the spread of the disease may affect the pulmonary artery, which often leads to massive bleeding in the individual. For the persons often affected by extrapulmonary TB, the disease often takes advantage of a weak immune system. This is usually for people with other problems, for example; people infected with HIV and intravenous drug users. Extrapulmonary TB affects other parts such as the lymph nodes, joints and bones, and the central nervous system (Jacob, Mehta & Leonard, 2009). Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the germ responsible for the spread of TB, is a highly aerobic pathogen, which takes up to 20 hours to divide. This is a particularly low rate as compared to other bacteria, and that is why when TB tests are

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