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Tuberculosis is an air-bone disease that can spread
when someone coughs, sneezes, or when
somebody literally talks. It usually affects the
lungs but can be present anywhere in the body.
Each year 2 billion people or one third the earths
population dies from tuberculosis.Tuberculosis
can increase the infection if there is factors like
poor air circulation or lack of fresh air breathing.
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Diagram showing worldwide levels of infection of TB and HIV in the year 2000

How Does Tuberculosis
Develop?
There are two possible
ways a person can become
sick with TB disease:

The first applies to a
person who may have had
been infected with TB but
is perfectly healthy. The
person can get infected
again if they have a
another disease such as
HIV or cancer or they may
get infected if they use
drugs/alcohol.

The other way it TB can
develop, happens much
more quickly. Sometimes
when a person first
breathes in the TB germs,
the body is unable to
protect itself against the
disease. The germs then
develop into active TB
disease within weeks.
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The symptoms for tuberculosis are:
(These symptoms are ranged from mild to
dangerous)
feeling weak or sick all the time
coughs that will not go away
weight loss/loss of appetite
fever/night sweats
chest pain
coughing up blood
Who Gets Tuberculosis?
Anyone can get tuberculosis. Some people are at
higher risks than others. The people who have
more of a chance getting TB are:
People who share same breathing space
Poor people/homeless people
Prisoners
Alcoholics or Drug users
People with medical conditions (cancer, diabetes)
Specially people with aids

Is Tuberculosis Curable?
Fifty years ago, there was no cure or drugs for
tuberculosis. If someone is given the wrong
treatment, it would have been better if they
werent given a treatment at all. When
people get the wrong treatment, they wont
be able to use any drugs at all for the
disease. The treatment for tuberculosis is
complex and is becoming even more
complex because of HIV infection.
Primary tuberculosis
pneumonia
This is an uncommon type of TB as
pneumonia is infectious. People who have
it, have high fevers and productive coughs.
It occurs most often in extremely young
children and the elderly. This type is also
found in HIV and Aids infected people.
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This is a diagram of the
lungs getting infected by
tuberculosis.
This is a diagram of
bacteria that is getting
Spread in the immune system
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In some cases, TB might spread though
a chain reaction. This picture is showing
that TB is infecting through chain reaction
Another picture were the cells
Are infecting the lungs
The Three Stages
There are three stages in the disease of
tuberculosis. These three stages are identified
from mild to extreme danger which is death. The
first mild stage can get cured easily as long as the
patient gets medication on time and takes good
care. The second stage is more dangerous and the
patient has to be really careful and that is were the
symptoms should be considered. The third stage is
extremely dangerous and there is no cure which
means death. The third stage is the stage were
nothing should go wrong and the patient will
slowly begin to vomit blood and eventually die.
Who Discovered Tuberculosis?
In 1882, Robert Koch discovered TB
and soon he found out that it was
caused by a microorganism
Mycobacterium tuberculosis. After
discovering that this disease was
infectious, he started to consider
treatments. Many treatments were tried
but none were discovered until the year
of 1943 were the activity of
streptomycin was discovered.

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This topic is not very common amongst us because
we might not have experienced it personally or
might not know people infected with this disease
although it is very common worldwide. One third
of the earths population is infected with
tuberculosis (including minor infections) so I think
that its important to learn about a common disease
thats spreading rapidly amongst us..
Bibliography
http://www.lungusa.org/diseases/lungtb.html#
do
http://www.who.int/gtb/
My mother knows a lot of things about
tuberculosis so she told me
http://www.ask.com.Tuberculosis+%28TB%2
9&dm=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elungusa
http://www.priory.com/cmol/TBWorld1.htm
(graph directly copied)