OTTAWA – The LaSalle County Health Department has announced that World TB Day is Friday. This is the 141st anniversary of Robert Koch’s discovery of the TB bacillus. When he announced his discovery in 1882 in Germany, tuberculosis was responsible for the death of one of every seven people living in Europe and the United States. The disruptions caused by the pandemic have led to increased mortality from TB and decreased the number of people diagnosed and treated for TB.
The symptoms of TB disease include feeling sick or weak, weight loss, fever and night sweats. TB of the lungs causes the general symptoms plus coughing, sometimes producing blood, and chest pain.
TB is caused by an organism called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. When a person with active TB disease coughs or sneezes, tiny particles containing M. tuberculosis may be expelled into the air. If another person inhales air that contains these particles, transmission from one person to another may occur. However, not everyone infected with the TB germ becomes sick; as a result, two TB related conditions exist; latent TB infection and active TB disease — both of which are treatable and curable. There are an estimated 13 million persons in the United States with latent TB infection, and about 10% of these infected individuals will develop TB disease at some point in their lives.
Today, one-third of the World’s population is infected with TB and about 2 million people die of this disease each year, even though it is curable. To find out more about TB, or to see about getting tested for a possible TB exposure, contact the LaSalle County Health Department at 815-433-3366 or visit our website at www.lasallecounty.org
