World Tuberculosis Day 2012

American Corner Bauchi in collaboration with PAS of the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria has today observed the World TB Day with an awareness creation program

World Tuberculosis Day is a worldwide event that aims to raise public awareness of tuberculosis and the efforts made to prevent and treat this disease. This event is held on March 24 each year and is promoted by organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO).

Tuberculosis, or TB, is an infectious bacterial disease caused by Mycrobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs. It is transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the disease. WHO estimates that the largest number of new TB cases in 2005 occurred in south-east Asia, which accounted for 34 percent of incident cases globally. However, the estimated incidence rate in sub-Saharan Africa is nearly twice that of south-east Asia. During an interactive discussion, the resource person Dr. Balogun Israel Adekunle of the infectious Disease Hospital in Bauchi said that TB was the number 1 killer disease before it was discovered and still remains a major challenge despite the enormous awareness campaign. He enumerated some of the risk factors of TB to smoking and poverty. Although he says TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to
become infected. But one-third of the world’s population has latent TB, which means people have been infected by TB bacteria but are not (yet) ill with disease and cannot transmit the disease. But luckily he said the disease is cureable and the treatment is free.

He urged the participants at the program to be peer educators and advise those that have a persisting cough of more than two weeks to go and have a sputum test as a preventive major.
Questions: some participants asked the Doctor some question about the possibility of contacting the disease through sneezing as well as wither one can get the disease from eating Cola nut of excessive coffee drinking? all of which the doctor clarify to some extent.