What You Should Know About Tuberculosis (TB)

Most commonly, a TB patient’s lungs are affected. Symptoms include coughing that lasts three or more weeks, coughing up bloody sputum, chest pain, or pain with breathing or coughing, unintentional weight loss, fatigue, fever, drenching night sweats and decreased appetite. Fifteen to 20 per cent of TB can also affect other parts of your body, including your kidneys, spine, guts or brain. When TB occurs outside your lungs, organ-specific symptoms may be the presenting complaints. For instance, TB of the gut may bring about chronic diarrhoea, and tuberculosis in your kidneys might cause blood in your urine.


If someone is suspected to have TB or has come into contact with a TB patient, they should go to their doctor or local health department for tests. There are two tests that can be used to help detect TB infection: a TB skin test or TB blood test. The skin test is the one that is most often used to detect TB. A small needle is used to put a testing material called tuberculin, under the skin. In two to three days, you return to your health care worker who will check to see if there is a reaction to this test. In some cases, a TB blood test is used to test for TB infection. This blood test measures the reaction of a person’s immune system against the germs that cause TB.

A diagnosis of pulmonary TB can be reached when the patient displays a typical clinical presentation, classical chest x-ray changes and positive sputum (phlegm that is coughed up from deep in the lungs) smears for TB which are Acid-Fast Bacilli (AFB). Generally, a clinician collects phlegm samples for three consecutive days to smear for AFB. This practice has a sensitivity of TB detection approximately 70 per cent when the culture-confirmed TB disease is the reference standard. To tell if someone has TB disease, other tests such as chest x-ray and a sample of sputum sent to culture the deadly bugs, may be needed.

People with TB need to promptly seek treatment, know how to take their TB drugs properly and complete the full course of medicines prescribed. Commonly, the treatment involves taking four medications for six months. It is vital to understand that if TB patients stop taking the drugs prematurely, they can fall sick again. If they do not take the drugs correctly, the germs that are still alive may become resistant to standard drugs or difficult to treat in the future. In addition, they need to fulfil all their doctor appointments. They also need to know how to make sure that they do not pass TB on to other people during their first few weeks of treatment, or until their doctor says they are no longer contagious by observing cough etiquette and respiratory hygiene.

Cough etiquette means that you cover your mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. It is prudent to seal the tissue in a plastic bag, then dispose it into a bin. If you do not have a tissue then you should cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve or elbow. You should not cough into your hands. You should wash your hands after coughing or sneezing.

A TB patient should wear a face mask during the infectious period as it can mitigate the spread of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the bacteria responsible for TB) from the patient to other people. The face mask plays a vital role in capturing huge moist particles near the mouth and nose of the patient, preventing the germs from being released into the surroundings.


It is advisable for patients infected with TB in the early phase of the disease to sleep alone in a separate, adequately ventilated room, if possible. Avoid using public transport and stay home from work, school, or other public places where large numbers of people gather, minimise social gatherings or interactions and use a fan or open windows to circulate fresh air.

As the common maxim goes, prevention is better than cure. The first step to halt the transmission of TB from one adult to another is identifying people with active TB, and then curing them through the provision of drug treatment. With proper TB treatment, someone with TB will very swiftly not be contagious hence can no longer spread TB to others.