Tuberculosis is a specific infectious disease caused by myobacterium tuberculosis. The pathogen primarily affects lungs and causes pulmonary tuberculosis. It can also affect the intestine, bones, joints, lymph gland, skin and other tissues of the body. Tuberculosis remains a worldwide public health problem. There are 15-20 million cases of infectious tuberculosis in the world. Eight million new victims and 2.9 million deaths are known to occur every year. The disease is credited with killing over one million women and nearly 1,70,000 children every year. WHO has declared TB as a global emergency.

FACTORS CAUSING TUBERCULOSIS:

1. Agent Factors: Tuberculosis is caused by a facultative intracellular parasite myobacterium tuberculosis. The most common source of infection is the affected human himself whereas the milk of the bovine (affected cattle) is also an active source of spreading the disease. Patients remain infected as long as they remain untreated. Effective antimicrobial treatment reduces infectivity up to 90% within 48hours.
2. Host factors: Tuberculosis affects people of all age groups. It is more prevalent in males than the females. It is not a hereditary disease but inherited susceptibility is an important risk factor. Man has no inherited immunity against tuberculosis. It is acquired as a result of natural infection or BCG vaccination.
3. Social factors: Social factors include many non- medical factors such as poor housing, poor quality of life, overcrowding, population explosion, malnutrition, lack of education, etc.

Tuberculosis is transmitted mainly by droplet infection which is generated by sputum positive patients with Pulmonary tuberculosis. In most cases the bacteria affects the lungs. Pulmonary tuberculosis destroys the lung tissue, rupturing blood vessels in the process.

CONTROL OF TUBERCULOSIS:

The control measures consists of two components, namely:

• Curative component
• Peventive component

CURATIVE COMPONENTS include case find in and chemotherapy whereas PREVENTIVE COMPONENTS include vaccination. The first step in tuberculosis control is early detection of sputum positive cases followed by chemotherapy.

To tackle this global emergency, the National Tuberculosis Program me was initiated in 1962. The long term goal of the programme is to “reduce the problem of tuberculosis in the community sufficiently and quickly to the level where it ceases to be a public health hazard.”

Despite effective case finding and therapeutic tools and declined mortality, tuberculosis still remains to be a serious communicable disease worldwide.