Public Health, Epidemiology and Health Statistics
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Epidemiology of Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is among the most documented contagious infections in the world. TB is classified into Latent TB and Active TB. Latent TB is a medical scenario when one has the bacteria in an inactive state in there body. In this form of TB, no symptoms are revealed to the patient while at the same time not being contagious (Morishita et al., 2020). On the other hand, Active TB is a situation where the bacteria is active in the body of a patient, shows symptoms and is contagious. A person with TB exhibits symptoms such as persistent coughing, fatigue, loss of appetite, fever, chest pain and night sweats, among others. To directly associate persistent coughing to TB, the victims will have mucus or blood in their cough. Tuberculosis is caused by a bacteria that is contagious from one person to the other in the form of microscopic droplets that find themselves in the air once they cough (Morishita et al., 2020). With active treatment of TB, a person can be treated in a span of two weeks even though there exists some TB traits that make the disease drug resistant.
Public Health, Epidemiology and Health Statistics
According to the World Health Organization, it is estimated that over 2 billion people get infected or are living with the infection across the globe (Glaziou, Floyd & Raviglione, 2018). The control of Tuberculosis (TB) has been a bone of contention for many countries over time to the extent that the US put up a regulation requiring physicians to report TB cases as soon as they diagnose to their local health departments. Statistics demonstrate that the number of new TB cases in the United States skyrocketed by about 20% from the year 1985 to 1992 (Glaziou, Floyd & Raviglione, 2018). The rapid growth of the new cases is attributed to factors such as the HIV epidemic, inadequate funds to support public health efforts as well as increased migration to the country.
The main factor behind the alarming numbers of TB today in the US is derived from fact that there has been cases of untreated, longstanding latent TB infection in the country. By the year 2017, the rate of TB in the US was approximated to be 2.8 cases in every 100,000 persons (Glaziou, Floyd & Raviglione, 2018). The dynamics of changing risk factors explain the rationale behind the varying numbers of TB among different ethnic and racial groups. According to the Center of Disease Control, by the year 2017, the number of TB cases in the US were spread at a quota of 70% of non-U.S- born citizens (Morishita et al., 2020). It is because of such statistics that an immigration regulation was put in place requiring that all immigrants be screened for TB before entering US soil.
Factors Contributing to the Insurgence of TB Globally
There exists social, economic and cultural factors that explain the global insurgence of Tuberculosis. Global migration patterns is a prominent social factor contributing to the increase in TB numbers on a global scale. The movement of people from regions that are highly affected to other countries without proper screening regulations at the entry and exit stages has contributed to the pace of spread of the contagious diseases (Khan et al., 2019). Poverty is a social factors that explains why people fail to get immediate medical attention after contracting TB. In the event that a person is not treated in time, the rate of spread of the disease is increased. The global hunger crisis has made many countries to be limited in their ability to control the spread of TB in the sense that hunger heightens susceptibility of TB infection (Khan et al., 2019). Public health is an economic factor that has contributed to the global increase in TB cases in the sense that environments that are economically empowered are more hygienic thus reducing the chances of harboring bacteria that cause TB.
The economic stability of a country dictates how it allocates money in dealing with TB. Poor countries tend to invest little money on prevention and control of TB thus passing the burden to other countries in the event of migrations (Morishita et al., 2020). From a political point of view, the lack of unified policies to control TB has contributed to the surge in numbers on a global scale. Lack of political goodwill when implementing aligned regulations put in place with international organizations such as the World Health Organization makes some countries to make positive steps while others remain behind (Morishita et al., 2020). At the end of the day, the graph or statistics of the insurgence of the disease continue to take an upward trend.
Comparative Analysis of TB Statistics
According to the 2019 global statistics by the World Health Organization, there was an es