World tuberculosis day was on March 24th. This day is used in order to bring awareness to the disease and to discuss new ways at looking towards cures and treatments. The focus of this year’s world Tb day was the goal to look for more treatment options for those that have latent Tb infections in order to prevent those infection from becoming active. Tuberculosis is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It can lead to latent TB infections or active infections. Those with latent infections have encountered the bacterium before but the body was able to fight it off. The bacteria stays within the body and continues to test positive for infection, even without causing signs/symptoms.
The issue with latent Tb infections is that if they are left untreated, they could eventually progress into active infections, which can be fatal. These latent infections pose a threat throughout one’s whole life. This is a real problem in the US and doesn’t receive enough attention from the public. Another issue with latent Tb infection is that they can become active and cause spread to others through respiratory droplets in the air. Those with weakened immune symptoms are more susceptible to the disease and also experience the biggest death rate. Like the recent coronavirus pandemic, the immunocompromised need to be protected from this disease.
The rates of Tb infections in the US have been decreasing over the past few years. Although this is promising information, eliminating the disease is going to take much more. Some strains of tuberculosis are multi drug resistant, meaning multiple antibiotics must be used to treat it. There are also some extensively drug resistant strains, that are less common, but untreatable. The threat that these strains pose can be alarming and steps should be taken in order to prevent the transmission.
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