Is Tuberculosis a Fatal Disease?

Tuberculosis is a lung disease caused by bacterial infection. It is an infectious disease and can spread from person to person during close contact. TB can remain inactive for years and does not show any signs or symptoms of the disease and without spreading to other people. Gradually, as the immune system of the infected person weakens, the signs of TB become noticeable and cause infection in the lungs and other parts of the body.

A person may acquire TB through close contact, drugs abuse, alcohol intake and through certain diseases like AIDS, CANCER, and DIABETES and through occupations such as of a health worker, where one has to stay in contact with the patients.

TB most commonly affects the lungs but can also involve almost any organ of the body.

A person can become infected with tuberculosis bacteria when he or she inhales minute particles of infected air. The bacteria get into the air when someone who has a tuberculosis lung infection coughs, sneezes, shouts, or spits. People who are nearby can then possibly breathe the bacteria into their lungs. You don't get TB by just touching the clothes or shaking the hands of someone who has tuberculosis. Most people feel that they might get TB by doing so. Tuberculosis is transmitted primarily from person to person by breathing infected air during close contact.

The symptoms of active tuberculosis of the lung are coughing, sometimes with sputum or even blood, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats. Tuberculosis can be treated with a six-month course of antibiotics.

Causes of Tuberculosis

All cases of TB are passed from person to person via droplets or infected air. When someone with TB infection coughs, sneezes, or talks, tiny droplets of saliva are exposed into the air, which can be inhaled by another person.

People who have inhaled the TB bacteria, but in whom the disease is controllable, are referred to as infected.

How to Detect Whether A Person Has Tuberculosis or Not?

Here are a few symptoms of TB which can be noticed and the person can be treated. They are:

You may not notice any symptoms of illness until the disease is quite old. Even then the symptoms - loss of weight, loss of energy, poor appetite, fever, a productive cough, and night sweats -- might easily be blamed on another disease and not a reason for TB. A person gets productive cough, sometimes it contains blood.

One should go for x-ray if these symptoms persist over time and do not go away with time.

Treatment of Tuberculosis

Treatment to prevent TB in a single person aims to kill germs that are doing no damage right now but might become noticeable within some period of time and become active.

INH is an inexpensive medicine which helps in preventing TB and curing it. You will take INH for up to a year, with periodic checkups to make sure you are taking it as prescribed and that it is not causing undesirable side effects to you. In some cases, intolerance or allergic response may also require an alternative treatment that may go on for 18 months.

This medicine also prevents the spreading of disease to others.