Topic 16
HIV/AIDS/STDs/TB/Hepatitis  (Blood and Air - Borne Pathogens)
 

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TB and Other Airborne Pathogen Prevention

Overview:  As discussed earlier, TB is a highly infectious disease that can be spread extremely rapidly if interventions are not implemented.  As cited in the CDC website "An estimated 10-15 million Americans are infected with TB bacteria, with the potential to develop active TB disease in the future. About 10 percent of these infected individuals will develop TB at some point in their lives. However, the risk of developing TB disease is much greater for those infected with HIV and living with AIDS. Because HIV infection so severely weakens the immune system, people dually infected with HIV and TB have a 100 times greater risk of developing active TB disease and becoming infectious compared to people not infected with HIV. CDC estimates that 10 to 15 percent of all TB cases and nearly 30 percent of cases among people ages 25 to 44 are occurring in HIV-infected individuals."  Finally some final statistics provided by the CDC

bulletApproximately 2 billion people (one-third of the world's population) are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the cause of TB.
bulletTB is the cause of death for one out of every three people with AIDS worldwide.
bulletThe spread of the HIV epidemic has significantly impacted the TB epidemic - one-third of the increase in TB cases over the last five years can be attributed to the HIV epidemic (Source: UNAIDS)."

As you can observe, TB causes significant problems.  In conclusion,  this section again provides you with information related to TB prevention.

Goal:  To provide an overview of TB prevention issues and programs.

Objectives:  To understand national and local programs that are designed to reduce TB.

Tasks: 

1.   Review the information found in the following websites:

This first website provides some information related to TB prevention.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5105a1.htm

This website provides a variety of articles from the MMWR related to TB prevention.  Examine the one from India.  How is it similar or different from the US.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/tb/default.htm

Finally.  Go to the CDC website and type in TB Prevention.  Review some of the articles you find interesting.

2.  Again, contact your local public health department.  Find out what kinds of prevention programs they provide for TB

3.  Once you have completed tasks one and two, write a 2-3 page paper describing some TB prevention programs both nationally and locally.  Are they different.  What are some barriers they might encounter?