Tuberculosis, Lung Health and Respiratory Diseases

TB diagnosis/ Prevention & Treatment

TB diagnosis includes microbiological studies such as sputum, alternative sampling, PCR.  Immunological test involves ALS assay, transdermal patch, tuberculin skin test, mantoux skin test, heaf test, CDC classification of tuberculin reaction, BCG vaccine and tuberculin skin test, Adenosine deaminase, Nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT), Full blood count & Interferon-? release assays.

TB prevention and control efforts depend primarily on the vaccination of infants and the detection & treatment of active cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has achieved some success with rapid diagnostics and improved treatment regimens. US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) endorses screening those who are at high risk for latent tuberculosis with either mantoux tuberculin skin tests or interferon- release assays. Prevention of TB consists of two main parts. The first part of preventing TB is to cease the transmission of tuberculosis from one person to another. This can be done firstly, by identifying people with active TB infection, and then curing them by providing the drug treatment. With the provision of proper TB therapy someone with TB will not be infectious very quickly, and so cannot spread the disease to others. The second main part of preventing TB is to prevent people with latent TB infection from developing active infectious TB disease.