World Tuberculosis Day: Prolonged Cough To Fatigue, Major Signs & Symptoms of TB

World Tuberculosis Day: every year, nearly 1.5 m million people die of TB. There is urgent need to be aware if the following symptoms have prolonged the rstay in the body.

World Tuberculosis Day: Tuberculosis is a serious bacterial infection that affects the lungs majorly. It is a highly infectious disease that can further affect kidneys, bone joints, brain, spine, heart muscles, and voice box in case it reaches a severe stage. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “TB is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and it most often affects the lungs. TB is spread through the air when people with lung TB cough, sneeze, or spit. A person needs to inhale only a few germs to become infected.”  WHO stated that every year, around 10 million people fall ill with tuberculosis (TB). Despite being a preventable and curable disease, – making it the world’s top infectious killer.

While there are antibiotics and a course of treatment for TB, 1.5 million people die from TB each year. There are also different stages of TB, that trigger different or determine the severity of the symptoms of this contagious disease.

Tuberculosis Symptoms

TB is as contagious as any other flu as it also spreads as germs spread in the air when someone already infected coughs, sneezes or spits in the open. According to the Mayoclinic, there are primarily three stages of TB and every stage has different symptoms.

Primary Infection: This is the first stage when the germs enter the immune system. While there is a possibility that strong immune systems successfully fight off the germs but some might still survive leading to slight flu-like symptoms like fever, fatigue and coughing-sneezing.

Latent Infection: Following the primary, comes the latent Tb stage. In his stage, the germs are already inside but our immune system creates a firewall. Therefore, these TB germs cannot really affect the body and can be detected with a skin test or X-ray. There are no true symptoms of it.

Active TB: In this stage immune system cannot any further control the spread of the infection. It usually happens few months after the primary stage is attained. Symptoms of active TB may worsen with time if not treated:

• Coughing up blood or mucus
• Chest pain
• Pain while breathing or coughing
• Fever
• Chills and Night sweats
• Weight loss
• Appetite loss
• Fatigue and a general feeling of gloom

Extrapulmonary TB: This is when active TB spreads outside the lungs to different body parts. This is called extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Therefore, symptoms differ depending on the affected body part:

• Coughing up blood or mucus
• Chest pain
• Pain while breathing or coughing
• Fever
• Chills and Night sweats
• Weight loss
• Appetite loss
• Fatigue and a general feeling of gloom
• Pain near the site of infection.