Communicable Disease Control: Tuberculosis

COMMUNICABLE DISEASE CONTROL: TUBERCULOSIS
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Introduction
A communicable disease such as tuberculosis is an illness or an infection that can transmit from one individual to another. They are the diseases that you can acquire from other people or objects. Terms such as infectious and or contagious are used when referring to communicable diseases. In a brief description a communicable disease refers to as a transmissible infection through direct contact with an infected person and or with their discharges or it could be indirect (Heymann, 2004). Tuberculosis also referred to as the TB is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium called mycobacterium tuberculosis. The infection attacks the lungs and it may affect other parts of the body such as intestines. The disease is airborne. This is to say that it is spread from one individual to another through droplets found in the air. If an infected person speaks, sneezes, spits and or coughs, they expel droplets that contain the bacteria into the air. If another individual inhales the air with the droplets containing the bacteria they become infected with TB. Therefore, it is important for the study and awareness of the disease and how people get infected. The population needs to be aware of how they can take care of the infected persons and prevent themselves from acquiring the infection. The infection may be rapid especially in large populations and if people live or work in a poorly ventilated p[laces. The disease may pose a risk to the human population. On the other hand the study of controlling communicable diseases such as tuberculosis is important for nurses and other medical staff (Heymann, 2004). This will help them prevent the spread of the disease and themselves from acquiring the disease from the patients. The issue of communicable diseases is a great threat to the human population; hence it is worth a close examination and necessary measures taken in order to prevent further harm.
TB is considered the second most deadly disease after HIV/AIDS. It has over two billion people across the world infected with the disease. Since the early years of the twentieth century tuberculosis has been a killer disease despite the fact that drugs are available for TB. In a recent research on TB infection statistics indicate that over nine million people are infected with the disease, over two million people lose their lives from the disease. Most of the organizations enhancing the control programs complicate the implementation of the control measures hence making it difficult for many health organizations abandon such programs. However, the rate of mortality caused by TB has been minimized with the help of some organizations control programs. As a result about seventy percent of the cases have been detected and over eighty percent treated successfully.
TB is a communicable infection that is transmissible through the airborne contact. This makes it easy to spread and exposing almost everyone (Ghebrehiwet, 1992). However, the people who are more prone to the disease are the people living in crowded areas with poor living conditions and areas characterized with poverty. The increased mortality rate of the disease makes TB as a communicable infection a public health issue. It has the capability to spread from one individual to another through the droplets that may be in the air or on objects that have been into contact with an infected person, it can virtually infect anyone. This makes it one of the top ranking deadly diseases n the world (Hargreaves, et al, 2010). By merely speaking or coughing, an infected person can spread the diseases to many people around him through the droplets carrying the bacteria. It poses such a great danger into the public because of its ability to spread so easily and fast. Further, its mortality rate is another danger posed to the public by the society. The disease causes over two million deaths across the globe annually. The disease over the years was perceived as the poor man disease. This is because the people living in poverty were more prone to the disease. It spreads easily and rapidly in crowded areas such as in slums crowded buses and public places. Prisons may be another public place that may have high spread of TB and in case of an outbreak many may lose their lives. Poor eating and dieting makes people become easily infected by the disease. Smokers are also prone to the disease. This is ...