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Diabeties and Tuberculosis

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In TB endemic areas - ie countries where there's lots of tuberculosis, which isn't the UK, although there are areas with large numbers of people travelling to / from eg Indian subcontinent, sub Saharan Africa, where rates are much higher than UK average.

In haste, as I'm heading out to the field.
 
Thanks copepod I should have realized the BBC world service is broadcast overseas to areas where tuberculosis TB is more endemic areas. Thankfully as you said the UK not one.
 
Years ago when going to hot and exotic places on holidays, I commented to my surgery nurse whilst having one of the appropriate jabs for wherever, that I was amazed that these were free, cos if you could afford such a holiday, another ?50 or whatever for the jabs was hardly out of the way.

She said that 'people like me' would do their homework and always have the jabs anyway, but it wasn't actually people like me the NHS were worried about, but it was hoped the lack of cost would encourage the people they did worry about, to come and have them ......

I know TB was still quite rife where I lived (West Bromwich) when I was a teenager in the 1960's. The sanatoriums were still pretty full then! The old 'uns (white British and N Europeans) who had it had no sooner popped their clogs, than we had the influx of firstly Caribbeans who largely weren't afflicted anyway, but they were very quickly followed by the Asians. A lot more of the Asians than the West Indians took unskilled jobs in eg foundries, moulding, casting etc where there was 'not a lot' of H & S and breathing illnesses were always rife (hence why they had so many vacancies because white people didn't want to work in such places thanks) - and lots of people seemed to get TB again .......

It was also said at the time when they stopped the smoking on planes, which meant the air-changing in the passenger cabins could be turned down a bit - that one bloke with TB could get on a plane in furrin parts and give it to X more people on the way to Heathrow - but I have absolutely no idea whether that was true or speculation.

I haven't heard of there being a case locally for about 25 years ...... but that's not to say there haven't been any.
 
Have not heard this word in years (Consumption)

Consumption: An old and once common term for wasting away of the body, particularly from pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). Other old TB terms include the King's evil or scrofula (TB of the lymph nodes in the neck) and Pott's disease (TB of the spine).

The World Health Organization (WHO) in "L'histoire de la tuberculose" notes that: "In 460 BC Hippocrates identified phtisis (the Greek word meaning "consumption") as the most widespread disease of his day and observed that it was almost always fatal. Someone who had tuberculosis seemed literally to be consumed by the disease. That is why they used to speak of 'consumption'" (my translation).

According to this it is still active

How common is TB?
Before antibiotics were introduced, TB was a major health problem in England. Nowadays, the condition is much less common. However, in the last 20 years TB cases have gradually increased, particularly among ethnic minority communities originally from places where TB is widespread.

In 2009, 9,040 cases of TB were reported in the UK. Most of these occurred in urban centres, with over one-third of cases in London. Globally, TB remains a major public health problem. There were 9.4 million new cases of TB in 2009, and 1.7 million deaths from the condition.

Countries with high numbers of HIV cases also often have high numbers of TB cases. This is because HIV weakens a person?s immune system, which means they are more likely to develop a TB infection.

It is also estimated that one-third of the world?s population is infected with latent TB. Up to 1 in 10 of people with a latent TB infection (but who do not have HIV) will develop active TB at some point.
 
However, in the last 20 years TB cases have gradually increased, particularly among ethnic minority communities originally from places where TB is widespread.
Click to expand...
It's interesting that at a time numbers are increasing, the vaccine programme has been reduced.
Since 2005 BCG is no longer given to school children. It is given to those babies who live in an 'at risk' area as part of the infant immunisation programme.

When I was at school 'everyone' still had a BCG vaccination, we actually had one girl got TB when I was in the sixth form, so the whole school was tested and anyone not positive vaccinated/revaccinated.
When I first taught you also had to have a chest xray before taking up any new job.
 
Good grief I remember those chest Xrays, we seemed to have them a lot when I was younger. I also worked as airline crew for a world wide airline and had more jabs than a pincushion - we had them seemingly every 6 months for everything from Cholera and Smallpox to TB and a million in between, not to mention the polio sugar lumps.
 
There was a girl in our school too who had it and they tested everyone else, most got the booster jab at about the same time (we were around 14). She recovered eventually, but had to go off to a sanitorium for several months.

One of the major concerns with TB these days from what I read is that it's more resistant to the general run of antibiotics now and thus much harder to treat.
 
Two main problems with TB - as AlisonM says, there are increasing number of antibiotic resistant strains, plus the vaccination (BCG, actually the only immunisation that really is a "vaccination", due to connection with cowpox) isn't very effective - only confers protection in around 60% of people who receive it, plus it's not lifelong. That's why the programme changed from giving to all teenagers to giving only to babies in high risk communities, plus others who work in such communities.

As a baby in mid 1960s, I did have a BCG, as one of our neighbours, who we visited lots, had had sanatorium treatment for TB in post WWII years. Our Mum was a health visitor, so very pro-vaccination. When tested as as teenager in school, I had no active immunity, but when tested again in late teens when starting nurse training, I did have immunity.
 
Everything is mate.

Heard from a friend today who's had a stomach ulcer for blooming years and kept having the blood test to see if it was H pylori thingy they can treat with ABs, always negative. She'd had 4 such tests this year already. She eventually had an endoscopy and they took a biopsy of her stomach lining - yee-ukkk - and guess what? Yes it's good old H pylori and she's just started on the ABs. Hosp say the blood tests 'aren't very accurate' .... They could have given her them before, just in case it was that after all - but they just won't now, not unless they actually know for an absolute fact that you desperately need them.
 
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