Over the last two years, there’s been a small, but significant turnaround in the fight against tuberculosis: instead of a decline in cases, they held steady. It may seem insignificant. For most people, tuberculosis, or the wasting disease, is just something from period romances. Until, that is, you go to the doctor with symptoms of […]
If you’re following the headlines, you may notice that there are health problems from every angle; ticks that spread Lyme Disease are in half of US counties, and still spreading. Mosquitoes are spreading some pretty serious viruses, two of them are already in the US: Chik-V and Dengue Fever, and both are pretty painful. Health […]
With none of the romance of a Puccini opera, over a thousand people in Northern California have been exposed to tuberculosis. But wait, here’s the scary part: it took more than a month to put together a list of patients and hospital staff who were exposed, and to begin the notification process. How did this […]
28 people in a Kansas high school have tested positive for tuberculosis… more may test positive after follow-up testing at the end of the incubation period. How did a tuberculosis outbreak happen in the middle of America? Authorities don’t know where the first patient to test positive to picked it up, but I don’t think […]
The World Health Organization has a “plan” for getting rid of TB. Part of it involves encouraging the development of new treatments, and part of it involves screening high risk groups: people with compromised immunity (like with HIV), impoverished areas (think the TB that started with the homeless in Florida), and immigrants. But encouragement doesn’t […]