Posts Tagged ‘TB’

A pediatric medical resident at Northwestern University may have exposed hundreds of patients to tuberculosis (TB). The female physician, whose name has not been released, likely did not know she was infected with TB since she was diagnosed just last week. During the past ten months she has worked at three Chicago area hospitals-Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Children’s Memorial Hospital, and Evanston Hospital-where she had contacts with over 300 patients. TB can be transmitted via coughing, sneezing, talking – anytime saliva can be aerosolized. Tuberculosis is a difficult disease to contain for the very reason that those who harbor disease may not know they have it. Learn more about tuberculosis.

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Marrying within one’s family is not usual practice for good reason – genetic diseases can occur more frequently. Aside from that, University of Cambridge researchers have found that children whose parents are related are more susceptible to some infections. By looking at data from certain parts of The Gambia where intra-family marriage is common, Gambian families where children had tuberculosis or hepatitis B, had parents who were significantly more likely to be related than in families with healthy children. Although more investigation needs to be done, it makes sense to think that children whose parents are related may have less diversity at the immunogenetic as well.

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Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s most widespread diseases. Nearly one third of the world’s population has been exposed and 8 million people annually develop active TB. For those who are infected and have latent TB, the treatment is a grueling nine-month-long course with a drug called isoniazid. Now, researchers from McGill University are revealing the results of a multi-national study which shows that four months of treatment with another TB drug, rifampin, is better than the traditional treatment, and confers less liver side effects. Because of this, people are more likely to complete the full course of treatment.

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