TB, otherwise known as tuberculosis, is an airborne disease. It is due to the bacteria, mycobacterium tuberculosis. This disease is known to spread from person to person through coughing, sneezing, and/or saliva. The symptoms of TB are primarily coughing with or without pain and bloody sputum, chills and fever, night sweats, lack of appetite, and/or weight loss.
Diagnosis is made through a tuberculin test, which is an injection underneath the skin with the TB bacteria, sputum testing, and/or a chest x-ray. Approximately 10 people are infected each day with TB.
HIV, also known as the human immunodeficiency virus, is a chronic disease, which is life threatening. This disease depletes your immune system making it impossible to fight even the slight infection. Having tuberculosis, or TB when you are HIV infected signifies a very dangerous condition and a leading cause of death for these HIV infected people.
Approximately 33% of the people who are infected with HIV also have TB. Their chances of contracting TB are increased 800-fold than someone who does not have HIV. Anyone that has HIV, therefore, should also be tested for the presence of TB. There are well over 30 million people that have HIV.
Increasing rates of TB infection since the 90s has alarmed the medical population. With over 1 million people being afflicted with HIV, an approximate 14 million also have tuberculosis. Alone, TB is a serious illness, but treatable. Having HIV infection combined with the TB infection is, however, much more serious and difficult to treat with positive results.
With HIV and TB come some other startling complications. One of these facts is that TB in a person that has HIV is not diagnosed as quickly as one that does not have HIV. The progression rate of the TB disease is much faster in HIV infected people as well.
If you are HIV positive, a physician will be closely monitoring your medical condition. TB that is resistant to some of the best anti-tuberculosis medications that the pharmaceutical companies offer is called multidrug-resistant TB or MDR TB.
Nationwide cases have been reported and not one state has escaped. Although it known to have decreased in numbers, those infected with HIV have a higher potential of contracting tuberculosis.
A great concern among the HIV population who are infected with TB as well is the fact that many medications used to treat each of these conditions will have undesirable interactions with each other. This makes the urgency even greater that we need to find a way to control this disease.
RESOURCES
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: HIV and TB
World Health Organization: Tuberculosis and HIV
University of California: Tuberculosis and HIV
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: The Link Between Tuberculosis and HIV
Clinical Microbiology REviews: HIV and Tuberculosis a Deadly Human Syndemic