Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by bacteria that usually attack the lungs and spread through the air when an infected person coughs. It is preventable and curable, yet the World Health Organization reports that around 10 million people fall ill with TB and more than a million die each year, making it one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases.
A cough that has lasted a month is easy to ignore. Getting tested could protect your health and your whole household.
Symptoms of lung TB
- A cough lasting more than 2–3 weeks
- Coughing up blood or blood-stained sputum
- Fever
- Night sweats
- Weight loss and loss of appetite
- Tiredness
- Chest pain
TB can also affect other parts of the body, such as lymph nodes in the neck, the spine, kidneys or brain, causing different symptoms.
The 3-week rule: anyone with a cough for more than 2–3 weeks, especially with weight loss or night sweats, should be tested for TB.
Who is at higher risk?
- People living with HIV
- Close contacts of someone with TB
- People with diabetes, malnutrition or who smoke
- Health workers
- People in crowded housing, prisons or shelters
- Young children and older adults
How TB is tested
- Sputum tests: rapid molecular tests (such as Xpert MTB/RIF) detect TB and resistance to rifampicin within hours
- Chest X-ray
- Skin or blood tests to find latent (sleeping) TB infection
Treatment
Most TB is cured with a course of several antibiotics taken every day for about 6 months, and shorter regimens are now recommended for some people. In many countries, TB testing and treatment are free. The most important rule is to finish the full course, even when you feel better, because stopping early can cause drug-resistant TB, which is much harder to treat.
Protecting others
- Cover your mouth when coughing and ventilate rooms
- People with infectious TB usually stop being infectious after about two weeks of effective treatment
- Close contacts should be screened
- Health workers should use respirators (such as N95 or FFP3) when caring for people with infectious TB
“But TB is a disease of the past.”
It is not. TB still makes about 10 million people ill every year and is among the world’s top infectious killers. It is also curable, and testing is often free.
Your next step: if you or someone you live with has had a cough for more than two to three weeks, visit a clinic and ask for a TB test.
Related: Early signs of HIV
Source: World Health Organization, Global Tuberculosis Report and TB fact sheet; WHO consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis treatment.
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