'Yes! We Can End TB' is the theme for this year's World Tuberculosis Day, which falls today. Each individual has a pivotal role to play if the deadly disease is to be eradicated. Diagnosis and treatment of TB in all government hospitals and selected private hospitals are free. Early diagnosis and proper treatment are essential for recovery from the disease.

What is tuberculosis?
TB is an infectious disease that can affect any part of our body. The main organ affected by tuberculosis is the lungs. The symptoms of TB develop slowly, sometimes taking months or even years after an initial infection. If the infection caused by TB bacilli does not manifest in any symptoms, the condition is called latent TB. Up to 10% of people with latent TB will also develop active TB. Active Tuberculosis patients are those with the symptoms of TB.

Symptoms
1. Weariness or fatigue
2. Sweating at night
3. Fever
4. Decreased appetite and weight loss
5. Cough for more than two weeks
The symptoms are manifested in the organs affected by the disease. So, swollen lymph nodes, abdominal pain, joint pain, headaches, seizures, and epilepsy can also occur.

How does it spread?
TB spreads through saliva when a patient with tuberculosis speaks, coughs, or sneezes. Prolonged contact with an infected person in domestic matters increases the risk of getting infected by the disease.

Who's at risk?
1. People with low immunity – Those with diabetes, kidney diseases, cancer patients, or those with diseases that weaken immune systems, such as HIV, are at higher risk of contracting the disease.
2. People living in overcrowded conditions such as slums, jails, etc.
3. Smokers, alcoholics, and drug abusers.
4. Children under the age of five and those over the age of 60 

The lung barrier between the body and the air outside is only made up of two layers -- endothelial cells and epithelial cells. Photo: IANS
The preventive measures include preventing the spread of the infection, maintaining courtesy while coughing, ensuring proper ventilation in the rooms, seeking proper treatment, and sincerely cooperating in the authorities' efforts to rein in TB. Photo: IANS

How does the diagnosis take place?
The diagnosis depends on what type of TB has affected which organ
1. Sputum is examined using new molecular methods such as Smear Microscopy or Gene Expert.
2. Chest X-ray
3. Clinically Diagnosed TB: TB can be confirmed clinically in people who are at high risk of the disease in the absence of positive diagnostic tests.
4. Extra Pulmonary TB: CT Scan, MRI, or Ultrasound Scan can be used for the diagnosis of Extra Pulmonary TB.

The treatment
TB is a completely curable disease if properly treated. Taking antibiotics in specific dose combinations for six months can cure pulmonary TB. The duration of treatment for TB, which affects body parts such as the bones and nervous system, is likely to be longer. Treatment of resistant TB requires a treatment period depending on the duration of the drug's resistance.

Those with more advanced lung cancer may present with complaints of headaches, indicating a spread to the brain, and bone pain or backache, indicating bone metastases. Photo: Soloviova Liudmyla / Shutterstock
TB is a completely curable disease if properly treated. Taking antibiotics in specific dose combinations for six months can cure pulmonary TB. Photo: Shutterstock/Soloviova Liudmyla

Preventive measures
The preventive measures include preventing the spread of the infection, maintaining courtesy while coughing, ensuring proper ventilation in the rooms, seeking proper treatment, and sincerely cooperating in the authorities' efforts to rein in TB.

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