Tuberculosis

Question 1

What is Tuberculosis?

Answer 1

It is a chronic bacterial infection which can affect all the organs of the body but most commonly the lungs. This is called pulmonary TB.

Question 2

Pulmonary TB has become so serious that in 1993, the _____ ___ ____ (WHO) labeled the growing TB ___ a global emergency with highest ___ rate being in Africa.

Answer 2

World Health Organisation
Pandemic
Mortality

Question 3

How is Pulmonary TB spread?

Answer 3

It is a contagious disease that is spread primarily in the air in moisture droplets from an infected person to an uninfected person.

Question 4

What causes TB?

Answer 4

It is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (also called TB bacillus) that is covered in a waxy coat which protects it against drying out, heat and being destroyed by the body’s immune system. The TB bacillus can, therefore, remain alive for a long time.

Question 5

What happens if immune system is strong enough?

Answer 5

The infection is contained and walled off by a fibrous capsule in which the bacilli can lie dormant for years. such infected people will not develop symptoms of the disease.

Question 6

What happens if the immune system is not strong enough?

Answer 6

The bacilli will multiply further and within four to six weeks the individual will be ill with pulmonary TB.

Question 7

What are the bodily effects of TB? (4)

Answer 7

• The sufferer feels tired and week
• They have a persistent cough (sometimes coughing up blood)
• Loses weight
• Has fevers and night sweats

Question 8

What are the economic effects of TB?

Answer 8

Economically the patient could lose earnings while ill and unable to work

Question 9

What are the social effects of TB? (2)

Answer 9

• There is a stigma attached to this disease
• If left untreated, each person with active TB could infect on average between 10 and 15 people, often much more, every year.

Question 10

Can TB be cured?

Answer 10

YES, TB can be cured by drugs that are free and readily available. The drug treatment is an aggressive six-month antibiotic regime known as DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy, Short Course).

Question 11

Explain the process of DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy, Short Course). (2)

Answer 11

• The patients are carefully monitored to make sure they take their full course of antibiotics. They are actually watched by those doing the monitoring to see that they swallow their TB drugs
• Within days of starting the treatment, the patient will not be able to infect others

Question 12

Why is it problematic that patients stop taking the medication when they feel better? (3)

Answer 12

• The illness is prolonged
• The patient becomes infectious again and continues to spread TB
• TB bacillus can develop resistance to the drugs. This is known as MDR-TB (multi-drug-resistant TB) which is expensive to treat, 25 times the cost of an uncomplicated TB case

Question 13

What does the term MDR-TB refer to?

Answer 13

It refers to organisms that are resistant to at least two of the first-line drugs.

Question 14

What does the term XDR-TB?

Answer 14

The TB is resistant to three or more of the second-line treatment drugs. This is commonly fatal.

Question 15

In Africa, HIV is the main reason why the incidence has increased in the past ___ years. HIV and TB form a lethal ___, each speeding other’s progress leading to death.

Answer 15

10

Combination

Question 16

What is relationship between HIV and TB?

Answer 16

HIV weakens the immune system. Someone who is HIV–positive and infected with TB is many times more likely to become sick with TB than someone who is infected with TB who is HIV-negative.

Question 17

Proper treatment of TB can prolong the lives of people with _____.

Answer 17

HIV/AIDS

Question 18

What is the leading cause of death among people who HIV-positive?

Answer 18

TB