Tuberculosis

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

Bacterial pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes tuberculosis a complex granulomatous disease which is a global health concern. It is a very slow growing bacteria, thus is extremely time consuming to culture in laboratory. It can survive the attack of the immune arsenal of our body; can successfully hide inside the macrophage. This makes long periods of uninterrupted antibiotic treatment necessary for the patients with tuberculosis and contributes to drug resistance very quickly [WHO 2014]. All this poses an extreme challenge to the scientists and the medical community to develop effective drug, monitor and treat this disease across globe. Before the discovery of anti-tubercular drugs, this disease was one of the most dreaded diseases. In absence of any drugs the only form of treatment recommended was healthy diet, rest and fresh air. Patients were sent to Tuberculosis sanatorium hoping that they might survive. The origin of this pathogen is traced back to Africa around 70,000 years ago and they successfully coevolved with humans as they migrated out of Africa and settled across the globe. Nearly 10,000 years ago there was a sudden change in human demography and the human population density increased suddenly, this is termed as Neolithic Demographic Transition. Genomic data of Mycobacterium across

Many people take breathing for granted, some never give it a second thought until a problem presents itself. Respiratory diseases affect millions of Americans as well as people from all over the world. Anyone can suffer from these disorders to include men, women, and children, with conditions ranging from mild, moderate, to chronic in nature. This paper will focus on one of the many respiratory disease called mycobacterium tuberculosis; more commonly referred to as TB.

“Tuberculosis (TB), a multisystem disease with myriad presentations and manifestations, is the most common cause of infectious disease–related mortality worldwide. Although TB rates are decreasing in the United States, the disease is becoming more common in many parts of the world. In addition, the prevalence of drug-resistant TB is increasing worldwide. TB is caused by M tuberculosis, a slow-growing obligate aerobe and a facultative intracellular parasite. The organism grows in parallel groups called cords (as seen in the image below). It retains many

Tuberculosis has been part of human history for a long time but how long is a long time? Recent research using genetic data has allowed us to know that the tuberculosis progenitor has been on this planet for about 3 million years affecting even our earlier ancestors (Gutierrez et al, 2005). Additionally this research showed that the bacilli from tuberculosis are capable of mixing sections of their genome with other strains and giving the pathogen a composite assembly, which resulted from ancient horizontal exchanges before its clonal expansion. This quality provided tuberculosis a big advantage that even now a days allows the organism to evade, adapt and create resistance to treatments that were once successful. In order to fix current and

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.

TB is a major cause of mortality and morbidity globally that boils down to one small, single infection. TB can be classified into 2 stages; Latent TB and Active TB. In Latent TB, the bacteria remain in the body in an inactive or dormant state. A person will not have any symptoms because their immune mechanism has stopped the bacteria from growing. Latent TB can remain in a dormant state for year (Zager et al, 2009). However this disease can easily change to Active TB. This change mainly occurs due to the rapid increase of Mycobacterium TB within an individual when a person becomes ill or their immune system is compromise. Ninety percent of the time, those who are infected with

Diagnosing tuberculosis infection in individuals who are not ill is primarily done with a tuberculin skin test that is read by a healthcare worker in 48 to 72 hours. Positive skin tests are an indication that the individual has been exposed to the tuberculosis germ. Additional testing such as chest x-rays or sputum cultures are needed to detect active disease. Latent TB infection is treated with anti-tubercular medications for a period of six to nine months. Bacille-Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is a vaccine used in many countries outside of the United States. However, individuals who have had this vaccine can still develop TB. (cdc.gov)

Since 1921, this vaccination had been used in prevention of TB infections and in present day is the only licensed vaccine in use as a prevention tool for tuberculosis. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of BCG is not very high, as there is still close to 9 million people every year globally being infected by tuberculosis. The vaccination has about an 80% effectiveness in prevention of tuberculosis for 15 years, but as people get older, BCG seems to be decreasingly effective. One of the more crucial prevention techniques for avoiding tuberculosis is simply by having a healthy and non-compromised immune system. Adults who are considered to have a healthy immune system are automatically at an advantage; their immune systems will most likely be able to kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis on its own. About 6/10 of all adults will have immune systems that are powerful enough to do so (“What is TB?”,

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a pathogen, which its physiology is directly linked to features of tuberculosis that it causes. The crucial feature for a mycobacteria’s survival is its unique cell wall structure. The insoluble cell wall core of MTB is formed by a large variety of lipid-containing molecules, such as mycolic acid, that are covalently attached (6). This hydrophobic cell wall provides a physical protection from the host immune response and serves as a barrier against many toxic insults (2). Further, the complex MTB cell wall is impermeable to both hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules, resulting in inherent resistance of MTB to most common antibiotics (8). Lipoarabinomannan is an antigen on the outside of the organism. This antigen is another important component of the cell wall because it inhibit the fusion of Mycobacterium-containing phagosomes with lysosomal compartments (4). Lipoarabinomannan hinders the fusion of phagosome with lysosome by impairing Ca2+/calmodulin pathway and inactivates macrophages (8). Therefore, this cell-surface component of MTB is able to facilitate the survival of mycrobacteria within macrophages (8). Also, MTB is able to survive the harsh environment of the host tissues by utilizing any available

First to volunteer at UNC Nash Health Care, you have to get a Tuberculin Skin Test, also known as a TB Skin Test. The skin test is designed to test individuals for bacteria that could lead to an infectious disease called Tuberculosis. It is administered by taking a tiny needle filled with TB antigens and injecting it into the individual's forearm to create protection against the disease. The injection site will leave a little balloon shaped mark after injection. The results of the TB skin test take about forty-eight to

Tuberculosis, TB (tubercle bacillus) or MTB (mycobacterium tuberculosis) is a widespread, and in numerous cases fatal, communicable disease produced by a variety of forms of mycobacteria. The disease is distributed within the air when individuals who are infected with active TB infection sneeze, cough, or pass on breathing fluids throughout the air. Generally infections are asymptomatic, meaning they feel or show no symptoms, and dormant, but then again approximately one in ten dormant infections in the long run move on to the active disease. If left untouched, active TB is fatal to more than half of those infected.

The technique for interpreting a TB skin test is to measure of any induration (localized swelling with hardening of tissue) perceived 48-72 hours after injection. (Blair, et al. 596) The presence of redness without induration is a negative finding. Moreover, the CDC specifies that an induration of 10mm or greater indicates exposure and possible infection, and a finding of 5mm or greater in an immunosuppressed patients or someone who has recently been in contact with an infected person should also considered

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).