Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB (short for tubercle bacillus) is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body. It is spread through the air when people who have an active MTB infection cough, sneeze, or otherwise transmit their saliva through the air. Most infections in humans result in an asymptomatic, latent infection, and about one in ten latent infections eventually progress to active disease, which, if left untreated, kills more than 50% of those infected.
World Tuberculosis Day, falling on March 24 each year, is designed to build public awareness about the global epidemic of tuberculosis and efforts to eliminate the disease. Today tuberculosis causes the deaths of about 1.7 million people each year, mostly in the Third World. March 24 commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. At the time of Koch's announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people. Koch's discovery opened the way toward diagnosing and curing tuberculosis.
In 1982, on the one-hundredth anniversary of Robert Koch's presentation, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) proposed that March 24 be proclaimed an official World TB Day.
How Tuberculosis Spreads
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that spreads through air like the common cold. When people who are sick with TB in their lungs cough, sneeze, spit or talk, the TB germs spread in the air and infect people who breathe in the germs. People who inhale the TB germs or bacilli may not immediately fall sick. The germs can lie dormant and when the person’s immune system is weakened the disease will surface. Other than the lungs, tuberculosis can also develop in lymph nodes, genitourinary tract, bone and joint areas, meninges (membranes covering the brain and spinal cord) and the lining outside the gastrointestinal tract.
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Some WHO TB Facts
• A third of the world population has TB infection
• Globally, nearly 9 million people were suffering from TB in 2010
• There were about 1.5 million TB related deaths worldwide in 2010
• TB is a leading cause of death in patients infected with HIV
Multidrug – resistant TB
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is the biggest threat to serious TB control efforts. MDR-TB is dangerous because it harbors TB bacilli resistant to standard first line drugs such as isoniazid and rifampicin, the two most powerful anti-TB drugs. MDR-TB is often the result of inconsistent or incomplete treatment, when patients fail to take their medicines regularly, usually because they begin to feel better and wrongly assume they are completely cured. Sometimes patients develop MDR-TB because they follow wrong treatment regimens prescribed by doctors and health workers.
Recent TB Trends
An extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB especially in patients with TB and HIV is seriously posing a threat to TB control. World Health Organization (WHO) is pushing global policy to fast forward coordinated public health interventions in order to reduce the fatalities resulting from this dangerous combination of TB and HIV. According to a recent WHO report 910,000 lives have been saved over the last six years by stepping up collaboration between TB and HIV services.
Results of the world’s most advanced TB vaccine trial that would be out in early 2013 could perhaps point to a more effective vaccine against tuberculosis thereby reducing the burden of infection and fatalities very soon.
A World Free of TB
In tune with this year’s theme, many organizations that join hands globally in the Stop TB partnership have outlined targets that men, women and children can dare to dream and achieve in order to free the world from the clutches of tuberculosis. People young and old, living in different countries can have these hopes to put an end to TB in their lifetimes.
- No more deaths from TB
- Faster treatment
- Quick, low cost, low tech test for TB
- An effective TB vaccine
- A TB free world
Seminars, symposiums, quiz programs, poster presentations and TB vaccination camps for children are some of the events lined up in urban and rural areas in an attempt to increase awareness and check the spread of TB.
The war on TB is all geared up to see a fight to the finish that totally eliminates TB from every corner of the globe. You can do your bit by joining hands with associations or groups working on World TB Day 2012 campaigns and ensure that you’ve made an individual call to stop TB in your lifetime.
Nepal:
सरकारले सन् २०५० सम्ममा नेपाललाई क्षयरोग उन्मूलन भएको राष्ट्र बनाउने भएको छ । नेपालमा पनि क्षयरोग बिनाको संसार, मेरो जीवनमै पार्नुपर्छ साकार भन्ने नाराकासाथ सरकारी र गैरसरकारीस्तरमा विभिन्न कार्यक्रम गरी यो दिवस मनाइदैछ । नियमित रुपमा औषधी सेवन गरे पूर्ण रुपमा निको हुने क्षयरोगबारे अझै पनि अन्धविश्वास कायम रहँदा रोग निवारणमा समस्या देखिएको छ । क्षयरोग नियन्त्रण गर्नका लागि सरकारले ७५ वटै जिल्लामा डट्स उपचार केन्द्र स्थापना गरेको छ । नेपालमा हरेक वर्ष ४५ हजार नयाँ क्षयरोगी थपिन्छन् भने वर्षेनी ५ हजार व्यक्तिको यो रोगकै कारण मृत्यु हुने अनुमान छ । करिब आधा नेपालीको शरीरमा त कुनै न कुनै अंशमा क्षयरोगको ब्याक्टेरिया रहेको विज्ञहरु बताउँछन् । यद्यपि, यस्तो सुषुप्त रुपमा रहेको टीबीको किटाणुका कारण व्यक्तिमा तत्कालै केही असर भने भै हाल्दैन । मुलुकका करीब ४५ प्रतिशत जनसंख्या यही सुषुप्त अवस्थाको टीबीको किटाणु बोकेर हिँडिरहेका छन् ।
विश्व स्वास्थ्य संगठनले सन् २०१० मा ८८ लाख व्यक्ति क्षयरोगबाट संक्रमित भएको र १४ लाखले त मृत्युवरण नै गरेको जनाएको छ । यस्ता मृत्युको ९५ प्रतिशत त निम्न र मध्य आय भएका राष्ट्रमा भएको बताइन्छ ।नेपालमा पहिचान भएका क्षयरोगीको निको हुने दर ९० प्रतिशत छ । यसवर्ष ‘क्षयरोग बिनाको संसार, मेरो जीवनमै गर्नुपर्छ साकार’ भन्ने नाराका साथ मार्च २४ मा मनाइने विश्व क्षयरोग दिवसदेखि नै अभियान सुरु हुने जनाएको छ ।
Source: WHO,Medindia,wikipedia, News agencies.
सरकारले सन् २०५० सम्ममा नेपाललाई क्षयरोग उन्मूलन भएको राष्ट्र बनाउने भएको छ । नेपालमा पनि क्षयरोग बिनाको संसार, मेरो जीवनमै पार्नुपर्छ साकार भन्ने नाराकासाथ सरकारी र गैरसरकारीस्तरमा विभिन्न कार्यक्रम गरी यो दिवस मनाइदैछ । नियमित रुपमा औषधी सेवन गरे पूर्ण रुपमा निको हुने क्षयरोगबारे अझै पनि अन्धविश्वास कायम रहँदा रोग निवारणमा समस्या देखिएको छ । क्षयरोग नियन्त्रण गर्नका लागि सरकारले ७५ वटै जिल्लामा डट्स उपचार केन्द्र स्थापना गरेको छ । नेपालमा हरेक वर्ष ४५ हजार नयाँ क्षयरोगी थपिन्छन् भने वर्षेनी ५ हजार व्यक्तिको यो रोगकै कारण मृत्यु हुने अनुमान छ । करिब आधा नेपालीको शरीरमा त कुनै न कुनै अंशमा क्षयरोगको ब्याक्टेरिया रहेको विज्ञहरु बताउँछन् । यद्यपि, यस्तो सुषुप्त रुपमा रहेको टीबीको किटाणुका कारण व्यक्तिमा तत्कालै केही असर भने भै हाल्दैन । मुलुकका करीब ४५ प्रतिशत जनसंख्या यही सुषुप्त अवस्थाको टीबीको किटाणु बोकेर हिँडिरहेका छन् ।
विश्व स्वास्थ्य संगठनले सन् २०१० मा ८८ लाख व्यक्ति क्षयरोगबाट संक्रमित भएको र १४ लाखले त मृत्युवरण नै गरेको जनाएको छ । यस्ता मृत्युको ९५ प्रतिशत त निम्न र मध्य आय भएका राष्ट्रमा भएको बताइन्छ ।नेपालमा पहिचान भएका क्षयरोगीको निको हुने दर ९० प्रतिशत छ । यसवर्ष ‘क्षयरोग बिनाको संसार, मेरो जीवनमै गर्नुपर्छ साकार’ भन्ने नाराका साथ मार्च २४ मा मनाइने विश्व क्षयरोग दिवसदेखि नै अभियान सुरु हुने जनाएको छ ।
Source: WHO,Medindia,wikipedia, News agencies.