Tuberculosis and TB Testing Update

The Fraser Valley Travel Clinic offers TB testing for anyone.  Travellers benefit from having TB testing prior to and after returning from travel overseas. TB testing done this way can allow doctors to identify people who have been exposed to TB before symptoms occur. These individuals may be offered effective post-exposure treatment to prevent symptomatic TB.

Tuberculosis Update:

TB kills more than 2 million people per year.  TB is becoming more dangerous due to deterioration of health services in various world regions, the spread of HIV/AIDS and the emergence of multi drug-resistant TB.  Within the next 20 years, 1 billion new cases of TB will occur world-wide, 200 million will get sick and 35 million people will die from TB.

Infection and Transmission:

TB is contagious and is spread through the air like the common cold. Only people who are sick with pulmonary TB are infectious. When infectious people cough, sneeze, talk or spit they propel TB germs known as bacilli into the air.  Only a small number of these germs needs to be inhaled by someone else to get infected. Left untreated, each person with active TB will infect on average 10 to 15 people every year.  Not everyone infected with TB gets sick.  The immune system "walls off" the TB germs with a thick waxy coat. TB this way can lie dormant for years.  When someone's immune system weakens for any reason, the chances of the TB becoming "active" increases.

TB Stats:

World Infection Rate:  1 new case per person per second

This means 1% of the entire world's population become newly infected every year.

1 out of 3 humans on planet earth are infected with TB right now!

Treatment:

Until 50 years ago, there were no drugs to treat TB. Now the majority of TB cases can be treated effectively. Treatment however takes a minimum of 6 months and a combination of three drugs are used.  However, because of poor compliance, strains of TB resistant to all major anti-TB drugs have emerged. Drug-resistant TB is caused by inconsistent or partial treatment, when patients do not take all their drugs regularly for the required period because they start to feel better, inconsistent prescribing habits by health professionals or unreliable drug supply causing interruption of treatment.  Poorly supervised or incomplete treatment of TB is worse than no treatment at all. That is why there are extensive clinical practice guidelines physicians must follow.  People who develop multi drug-resistant TB, when infecting others, will also infect them with the same drug resistant strain. While drug-resistant TB is treatable, it requires extensive chemotherapy (up to two years of treatment) that is often prohibitively costly (often more than 100 times the cost of standard treatments) and often has more side-effects.

TB testing is our most effective tool in the fight against TB. Ask for a TB test today. It costs about the same as a movie ticket and popcorn.

Call for an appointment now.

Abbotsford: 604.755.4695 Chilliwack 604.819.3377

The FVTC donates a portion of each TB test directly to the Canadian Lung Association.