World Tuberculosis Education for LVNs, RNs, Bay Area Nursing Schools
World Tuberculosis Education for LVNs, RNs, Bay Area Nursing Schools
According the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) one out of every three people in the world is infected with Tuberculosis (TB), one of the World's deadliest diseases. It is estimated that each year, almost 2 million people around the world die of TB. Licensed Vocation Nurses throughout the Bay Area in California are keenly aware of the wide-spread diseases and epidemic trends. Leading Nursing Schools in the Bay Area instruct their RNs and Vocational Nursing Program students on these issues to better prepare them for a career as Health Care Professionals.
Ms. Kelly Smith, MHP, Program Manager at the Francis E. Curry National Tuberculosis (TB) Center at the University of California, San Francisco, reminds us that the efforts to control TB must also be coordinated and global. We must all remain conscious of this disease because our freedom to travel and to migrate to various countries of the world makes all of us vulnerable no matter who we are, or where we live. Awareness again is the basis for treatment and for prevention of this global disease. For more information, go to www.cdc.gov/tb/faqs or to www.nationaltbcenter.edu/abouttb/patient_education.cfm.
What is tuberculosis? Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease that is spread through the air from one person to another. It mainly affects the lungs and moves between people when one person with TB of the lungs or throat coughs, sneezes, laughs, speaks, or sings. When TB germs multiply, the kidneys, brain, spine, or other parts of the body can also be affected.
How would I know if I have TB? If you have the active TB disease in your lungs, you may have chills and/or fever, cough a lot, cough up mucus or blood or have chest pain when you cough. You may also feel weak and tired, lose weight, lose your appetite and sweat a lot at night. These symptoms usually last several weeks and usually get worse unless treated.
However, not everyone who has been infected with TB feels ill or has symptoms of TB. If you have a latent Tb infection (LTBI), you may not feel ill, will not be infectious, and cannot spread the TB to someone else. Approximately one out of every ten infected people will develop active TB, usually within 2 years becoming infected.
If you have been in contact with someone who has TB, your local health department or your primary care provider can conduct a thorough physical exam and test you to see if you have become infected. There are two types of test that your healthcare provider can recommend to detect TB infection: a skin test (PPD) or a special TB blood test. The PPD can take up to three days to determine if the person is infected; the blood test takes a slightly shorter time. Other tests such as a chest x-ray and/or a sample of sputum may also be used.
If you have TB infection you may be given medication to prevent the TB infection from becoming the TB disease. If you have TB disease, medication will be used to kill the TB germs. TB germs die very slowly and it is important in both cases, to regularly take all the medication prescribed for you. Usually nine months to one year is the time the medication is prescribed. If you stop taking the medication too soon, you may become ill again, and the germ may develop resistance to the drugs. These cases of drug resistant TB are very difficult to treat.
Vocational Nursing and Licensed Vocational Nursing professionals are having to go beyond the course work and need to study not only what is happening in regions such as the Bay Area, CA, but also the global impact of their health care profession.
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