I recently noted that a significant percentage of immigrants surging into the cities across this nation were either likely unvaccinated or potentially infected with a wide array of communicable diseases.
One of those diseases was tuberculosis (TB), a known killer. Over 10 million people died of the disease worldwide in 2021 and is the 13th leading infectious killer. Vidya Krishnan, a health-focused Indian investigative journalist, once noted: “Tuberculosis shaped history; it’s the phantom plague.”
It’s a testament to the quality of medical care and public health level this country has enjoyed for decades that many Americans seem to have forgotten exactly how serious an active case of TB can be.
And, as there are more people now in this case with potentially active cases that can infect others, news that a missing Washington woman has refused TB treatment is concerning.
A Washington state woman who has refused to isolate or get treatment for tuberculosis for more than a year was found in contempt of court Friday.“Law enforcement has the civil arrest warrant that authorizes them to detain the patient who is still refusing treatment,” the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department said Friday.Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorenson signed an order of contempt and an order for involuntary detention, testing and treatment.Tuberculosis is spread through the air from one person to another, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.If not treated properly, TB can be fatal, the CDC says.
And what is even more disturbing is that one officer with an arrest warrant for her allowed her to go free after being detained at a casino.
A Washington state woman who has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and refused numerous orders to isolate was spotted boarding a bus to a casino by an officer who had been tailing her and had a warrant for her arrest, according to a court filing obtained Wednesday.Instead of arresting the woman, identified only as V.N. in documents filed in Pierce County Superior Court, the officer let her go and a local judge found her in contempt.On Friday, Judge Philip K. Sorenson ordered that she be seized and treated against her will, online records show.Authorities haven’t been able to find her, a Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman said in an email.
The bacterium that causes tuberculosis is spread through the air when a person with an active case coughs, sneezes or speaks. Treatments, once started, must continue to completion to fight the infection successfully.
TB disease can be treated by taking several drugs for 6 to 12 months. It is very important that people who have TB disease finish the medicine, and take the drugs exactly as prescribed. If they stop taking the drugs too soon, they can become sick again; if they do not take the drugs correctly, the germs that are still alive may become resistant to those drugs.TB that is resistant to drugs is harder and more expensive to treat. In some situations, staff of the local health department meet regularly with patients who have TB to watch them take their medications. This is called directly observed therapy (DOT). DOT helps the patient complete treatment in the least amount of time.
After overreacting to the novel coronavirus, public health officials and those tasked to carry out public health orders need to begin focusing on real hazards to public health….like TB.
The one bit of good news: the University of Massachusetts Amherst microbiologists have identified a long-sought gene that plays a critical role in the growth and survival of the TB bacterium. This finding offers a potential target for new drug therapies.
Published in the journal mBio, the research showed that the putative gene cfa encodes an essential enzyme directly involved in the first step of forming tuberculostearic acid (TBSA), a unique fatty acid in the cell membranes of mycobacteria. TBSA was first isolated from mycobacteria nearly 100 years ago but exactly how it’s synthesized had remained elusive.”There is a long history associated with this very fascinating fatty acid,” says senior author Yasu Morita, associate professor of microbiology, in whose lab lead authors Malavika Prithviraj and Takehiro Kado carried out the research.The experiments revealed how TBSA controls the functions of the mycobacterial plasma membrane, which acts as a protective barrier for the TB pathogen to survive in human hosts for decades.
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