Tuberculosis

Common symptoms of TB disease include: 

• Prolonged cough 
• Chest pain 
• Weakness or fatigue 
• Weight loss 
• Fever 
• Night sweats 

Often, these symptoms will be mild for many months, thus leading to delays in seeking care and increasing the risk of spreading the infection to others.  

If a healthcare provider suspects a patient has TB disease, they will send the patient for testing. In the case of suspected lung TB disease, patients will be asked to give a sputum sample to test for TB bacteria. For non-lung TB disease, samples of affected body fluids and tissue can be tested. WHO recommends rapid molecular diagnostic tests as initial tests for people showing signs and symptoms of TB.

With TB infection, a person gets infected with TB bacteria that lie inactive in the body. This infection can develop into TB disease if their immune system weakens. People with TB infection do not show any signs or symptoms of TB. To identify TB infection, healthcare providers will screen at-risk patients to rule out active TB, and they may use a skin or blood test to check for TB infection. 

TB disease is curable. It can be treated with a standard 6-month course of 4 antibiotics. Common drugs include rifampicin and isoniazid. In some cases, the TB bacteria does not respond to the standard drugs. In this case, the patient has drug-resistant TB. Treatment for drug-resistant TB is longer and more complex.  

The course of TB drugs is provided to the patient with  support by a health worker or trained volunteer. Without such support, treatment adherence can be difficult. If the treatment is not properly completed, the disease can become drug-resistant and can spread. 

In the case of TB infection (where the patient is infected with TB bacteria but not ill), TB preventive treatment can be given to stop the onset of disease. This treatment uses the same drugs for a shorter time. Recent treatment options have shortened the treatment duration to only 1 or 3 months, as compared to the previous 6-month regimen.