How dangerous is tuberculosis and how can you get it? 7 questions and answers

1. What is tuberculosis?
   Tuberculosis, also known as TB, is an infectious disease caused by tuberculosis bacteria ( TB bacteria). An infection with this bacterium can cause serious inflammation. Tuberculosis can occur anywhere in the body but the most common form is pulmonary tuberculosis.

Pulmonary tuberculosis can be contagious. If a TB patient is not treated or is not treated properly, the disease can be fatal. Tuberculosis occurs regularly in the Netherlands. Every year there are about 1100 new patients in the Netherlands.

1. What are the symptoms of illness?
   Someone can be infected with the tubercle bacterium without noticing it. About one in ten people who become infected will actually become ill. When people become ill, the following symptoms can occur prolonged coughing, slimming, fatigue, fever, night sweats, lack of appetite and sometimes coughing up blood.

A person with these complaints should report as soon as possible to his GP or the TB control department. Tuberculosis can occur alongside the lungs elsewhere in the body (for example glandular or capuberculosis). In that case, other complaints can also occur.

1. How can you get tuberculosis?
   The tuberculosis bacterium spreads through the air. When a patient with a cough pulmonary tuberculosis coughs and sneezes, the bacteria can be released from the lungs. If someone inhales these bacteria, he/she may become infected.

Tuberculosis is not transmitted by touching the patients. Usually, people are no longer contagious two to three weeks after the start of the medication course. Tuberculosis outside the lungs is not contagious under normal circumstances.

1. Who can get it?
   The risk of tuberculosis depends on the chance of becoming infected and the personal resistance to developing the disease. Persons who stay in the same room for a long time and who are infected with infectious tuberculosis, such as family members, are most likely to be infected.

But not everyone who came into contact with the TB bacterium gets tuberculosis. Often there are enough antibodies in the body to prevent someone getting infected and developing the disease.

1. How can it be prevented?
   It is important that people with infectious tuberculosis are detected and treated as quickly as possible. Good cough hygiene is very important.That means a handkerchief for the mouth and turning away the head when sneezing or coughing. In some situations wearing a mouth-nose mask is useful.

There is a tuberculosis vaccine. This vaccine is called BCG. This vaccination does not prevent someone from getting tuberculosis, but it does prevent the potentially serious consequences of tuberculosis, such as meningitis. Vaccination is not standard in the Netherlands because tuberculosis is rare in the Netherlands.

1. Is it treatable?
   Yes, tuberculosis is generally good to treat with the drugs that are available nowadays. A drug cure is long and intensive: a patient must take several medications every day for at least 6 months.

2. Can someone with tuberculosis go to school or work?
   A person with contagious tuberculosis is not allowed to go to work or school until research shows that the contagious period is over. Most patients can go to work or go to school during the medical cure.