Tuberculosis - A critical health disease

Every year, the world celebrates March 24th as "World Tuberculosis Day" to raise awareness of the most common disease. It has been infecting people for centuries and has been called by different names, including tabes, white plaque, and phthisis. It is still causing high morbidly and deaths despite its familiarity. Yes, we are talking about tuberculosis, or TB, a very well-known but yet strange disease.

Tuberculosis An "Ancient Monster"

Tuberculosis is one of the deadliest and most ancient communicable diseases that has existed for over 1000 years and is still infecting millions of people. Since it is an airborne disease, close contact with the unconscious sneezing of a tuberculosis patient is enough to spread the infection. And, sadly, such a person can become an active or dormant carrier of disease.

Theme Of The Year For 2022

On this day in 1882, a great scientist named"Robert Koch" disclosed his findings on tuberculosis bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis). To honor him, the entire world raises awareness against TB on March 24th each year. And this year theme for World TB Day is "Invest to End TB, Save Lives" to scale up the efforts to end the menace of tuberculosis in society.

Drug Resistance Vs Tuberculosis

It is miserable to know that children, AIDS or HIV patients, and women come under the most at-risk category for tuberculosis. And the unending resistance to the drug therapy is making TB more difficult to deal with. Particularly in Asian countries, where the threat is growing rapidly as TB is more concentrated here than in other countries.

Though it is a preventable or treatable disease, it is still incurable because the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium can develop resistance to the treatment easily. Modern medicine and early treatment are the only ways to stop mortality and its progression.

However, there are many risk factors linked to tuberculosis, but through research it has been found that there is a closer connection between diabetes and smoking. Such people are more prone to getting infected by TB than others. Besides, economic status also has a huge impact on tuberculosis since the poor are at a great risk of catching TB infection.

Tuberculosis In India

In India, tuberculosis, or TB, is more commonly known as "tapaediq" which mostly affects the lungs. It's also worth noting that India has one-fourth of the world's TB cases, with a 16% mortality rate, and also carries the highest burden of drug-resistant tuberculosis. And moreover, only one third of the cases get registered, and the rest of the cases go unnoticed.

Here, social stigma is one of the main reasons since TB can spread (communicable) easily by sharing household things or by close contact, apart from poverty, alcoholism, poor health, and insanitary conditions.