World Tuberculosis Day is observed on 24th March every year to raise awareness regarding the transmission of tuberculosis (TB) and its eradication. TB is a communicable disease that predominantly affects the lungs but can also affect other human organs, such as the kidneys, brain, spine, and skin. It is induced by the bacterium “Mycobacterium tuberculosis” and transmitted through airborne droplets on coughing or sneezing by the infected individual. Risk of infection is increased with increased contact with an infected individual.
Symptoms of Tuberculosis
The symptoms of patients suffering from pulmonary TB include more than three weeks’ cough, pain in the chest, hemoptysis while coughing, etc. Other presenting signs and symptoms are weight loss, anemia, fatigue, fever, night sweats, chills, and anorexia. Symptoms vary with the organ affected for other organs’ TB of the body.
Raising Susceptibility Factors
Certain persons are more vulnerable to TB. People with weakened immune systems, such as HIV/AIDS victims, are at higher risk of being exposed to the infection. People who live in unsanitary or overcrowded environments tend to develop the infection. Health professionals who come into direct contact with patients suffering from TB are also at a higher risk. Other than this, contact by travel or residence in places of extremely high prevalence of TB exposes one to a higher risk of infection.
Treatment and Management
TB is not a curable disease via a regular antibiotic course. There has to be a six-month regular course that has to be taken to get cured. Creating drug-resistant strains of TB that are more difficult to treat is inevitable if the treatment is not taken as directed. Routine screening, as recommended by physicians, of high-risk populations must be done to allow them to be detected early and then treated early.
Measures controlling TB involve generating awareness, early detection, and treatment. Proper medication makes the patients cure, and illnesses become less transmitted. World Tuberculosis Day brings people’s awareness back to the perseverance of endeavors aimed at TB eradication and general improvement of the level of health in the world.