Tuberculosis or commonly referred to as TB or TUBERCULOSIS disease is caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. This disease affects the lungs, although there are other organs that can be attacked by TUBERCULOSIS, i.e. Spine, kidney, or brain.
Read also: Do we need to keep our healthy lungs?
Bacterial characteristics of tuberculosis causes
Before knowing how is TB spread, it is important to know how germs cause TB can live and breed in the body.
Tuberculosis is a highly contagious infection caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. TB bacteria have characteristics like bacteria in general, namely:
- Resistant to low temperatures so that it can survive long periods of time at temperatures between 4 degrees Celsius to minus 70 degrees Celsius.
- The germs exposed to ultraviolet rays will directly die in a few minutes.
- The bacteria will die if it is within one week if it is inside the phlegm that is at a temperature between 30-37 degrees Celsius.
- Germs can sleep and do not develop in the body for a long time.
Types of TB that attack the body
There are two types of tuberculosis that can affect the body that is Latent TB and active TB with symptoms:
Latent TB
In this condition, You have TB infections, but those bacteria grow in your body in an inactive state and cause no symptoms.
Latent TB is also called inactive TB or an uncontagious TB infection. However, it can turn into active so the treatment is important for latent TB to help control the spread of TB. Estimated, a third of the world population experienced latent TB.
Active TB
This condition makes you sick and can transmit to others. This can happen the first few weeks after infected with TB bacteria or a few years later.
How is TB Spread?
How is TB Spread? TBC’s most common transmission occurs through the air. When a person who has had a TBC disease cough, sneezing, or talking by sprinkling the saliva, TB bacteria will take part in the saliva to fly into the air. Furthermore, bacteria will enter the body of others through the inhalation air.
The germs that come out of the cough of the TB sufferers can stay in damp air that has not been exposed to sunlight for hours, even weeks. As a result, everyone who is close to and has contact with TB sufferers will potentially inhale it and eventually infected.
TB disease is highly contagious, but not directly. Once inside the body, these bacteria can “fall asleep” for a long time or in the “Dorman” phase, they remain in the body, but are not actively breeding and attacking the body. In fact, most people have been exposed to TUBERCULOSIS during their lifetime, but only 10% of people infected with TB will actually suffer from this disease.
TB disease is not transmitted through physical contact, such as a handshake, or touching the personal equipment belonging to the sufferer. Sharing food and drink with even kis**sing sufferers also does not transmit TB bacteria from sufferers to others.
There are some groups of people who are more prone to tuberculosis infections than others, they are:
- Elderly.
- People infected with HIV or AIDS. (Read also: HIV infection early symptoms)
- Baby.
- Sufferers of cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, or autoimmune diseases.
- Lack of nutrition.
The main reason why they are at a higher risk than others is that they have a weak immune system that makes it harder to suppress the growth of TB bacteria.
The process of healing the disease takes a long time, which is 6-8 months. TBC sufferers are encouraged to always perform the examination and treatment until complete.
The possibility of transmission of TUBERCULOSIS is greater in residence that does not meet health requirements, such as dense and rundown environment, detention house, the place of education with the dorm, or prisons.
How to prevent tuberculosis
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), TB is the second largest killer globally caused by infectious organisms. Fortunately, tuberculosis is completely curable and prevented as long as it performs measures to prevent the effective transmission of TBC as follows:
- Minimizing risks from exposure.
- Must be extra cautious if high risk.
- Be cautious when travelling to high-risk areas.
- Implementing a healthy lifestyle.
- BCG vaccination.
Thank you very much for reading How is TB Spread, and How To Prevent TB, hopefully useful.
