Tuberculosis is bigger threat to Robeson County than Ebola

Many organizations recently have had drills and training to practice how to react to the Ebola virus, but our head epidemiological disease nurse likes to say, for health care workers, you should worry more about tuberculosis than Ebola.

There are a couple reasons for that. First, we have active cases of TB in Robeson County — there has been no connection to Ebola. And while the mortality rates are extremely high for Ebola, one has to remember to be infected one has to come in contact with the blood or body fluids of an acutely ill person.

Counter that with TB, which is transmitted by air, and it is readily apparent. Which one could be more easily acquired. The global death toll is not even — 50,000 from Ebola and 1.5 million from TB annually.

There were 9 million new cases of tuberculosis in 2013. It is second only to HIV as a worldwide killer by a single infectious agent. The good news is that 37 million lives were saved from 2000 and 2013 by TB diagnosis and treatment. There has been a global reduction such that predictions are that by 2015 the spread of TB will be reversed. Still, one-third of the world’s population has latent TB, which means that person has been infected by TB bacteria but is not yet ill with the disease and cannot transmit it. However, once infected, 10 percent have a chance of falling ill with TB, but these odds increase significantly if the immune system has been compromised. Smoking is attributable for 20 percent of the cases.

Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria that most often affects the lungs. It is spread from person to person through the air when an infected person sneezes, coughs or spits and some of those germs are inhaled. Symptoms include a cough with sputum and blood, night sweats, chest pains, weight loss and weakness.

Because of the ease of spreading this disease, the Health Department will have people incarcerated who do not follow treatment protocol, which of course then exposes law enforcement to the germs as well as health care workers and the general public. Since October of 2013, Robeson County has had 15 cases of tuberculosis identified with 12 additional people currently receiving treatment. So our immediate worry should be what is at our doorstep and then on what might be.