Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it... Wikipedia

• Specialty:  Infectious disease, pulmonology
• Symptoms:  Chronic cough, fever, cough with bloody mucus, weight loss
• Causes:  Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• Risk factors:  Smoking, HIV/AIDS
• Diagnostic method:  CXR, culture, tuberculin skin test, QuantiFERON
• Differential diagnosis:  Pneumonia, histoplasmosis, sarcoidosis, coccidioidomycosis
• Prevention:  Screening those at high risk, treatment of those infected, vaccination with bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)
• Treatment:  Antibiotics
• Frequency:  25% of people (latent TB) 10.6 million (active TB)
• Deaths:  1.3 million (2022)
• Data source:  DuckDuckGo