ASSIGNMENT

COVER PAGE

Student Number: BP0327915

Date submitted:

Word Count: 418

Module name: Global Health and Sustainability

Assignment name: Tuberculosis [TB]

Tutor’s name:

Declaration:
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relating to plagiarism. All the material in this assignment is my own
work, except where I have indicated with appropriate references

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BP0327915 Page 1 of 10 Global Health and Sustainability

Tuberculosis [TB]
 Table of contents

Chapter Page
Title and Introduction.....................................................................................................3
Title…............................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
Background Information................................................................................................3
Current Situation............................................................................................................4
Current Statistics..............................................................................................................4
Contributing Factors.........................................................................................................4
Existing Efforts................................................................................................................. 4
Impact Of Tuberculosis................................................................................................. 5
Health Impact.................................................................................................................. 5
Economic Impact.............................................................................................................5
Social Impact....................................................................................................................5
Solutions and Interventions..........................................................................................6
Global Health Plan........................................................................................................... 6
Strategies......................................................................................................................... 6
Case Studies.................................................................................................................... 7
Implementation.................................................................................................................8
Conclusion......................................................................................................................9
Summary.......................................................................................................................... 9
References....................................................................................................................10

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 Introduction

Imagine that you are coughing for a week and you are feeling weak for days and you
don’t know what is happening with your body and then you go to doctor for checkup and
suddenly the checkup result surprises you, it says you have Tuberculosis. Yes, the
same disease that spreads through air. Tuberculosis is an airborne disease and it is one
of the oldest disease of human history.
It takes life of people if not cured properly and soonly. This disease is caused by a
bacteria called mycobacterium tuberculosis. This bacteria mainly attack the lungs. TB
can be cured , its medicine also exist still million of people loose their life because of
lack of treatment on time because this disease attack poor, crowded and low income
families.

Background Information

Tuberculosis is a very infectious and chronic disease. When a person with TB cough,
sneeze and spit, a tiny droplets that carries a bacteria in the air is released and when
the healthy person breathes the same air, those droplets enter inside them and starts
affecting the lungs slowly. There are two types of TB, Latent TB & Active TB. Latent TB
is not that much risky because the bacteria is inactive and the person do not feel sick
and cant spread disease. But, Active TB is bit dangerous than latent because symptom
like cough, fever loss of weight is clearly seen and the bacteria is also spread to other.

This disease affected thousands of people in 18 th century. Ancient India & Ancient
China were also affected by TB. For your surprise, the evidence of TB was also found in
Egyptian mummies and skeletons dated between 3000 and 2400 BC. This means that,
TB affected people way before it was discovered. At the beginning of 20 th century also,
TB affected thousands of people in the UK. The first medicine for TB was discovered in
1940. In 2015, World health organization prepared End TB Strategy aiming to lower TB
case and death worldwide. The main goal of this strategy was to cure the disease

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completely by 2035. Based on the report provided by World health organization, around
10.6 million people became sick with TB in 2023, out of which 1.3 million people lost
their precious life. TB still has affected the countries like India, Indonesia, China,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and many other African Countries. Around 80% of the TB cases
came from these countries.

Current Situation

Current Statistics
At the time of writing this, somebody lost their life because of TB. A report says that, in
every 15 second, someone loose their life by TB. Every year tuberculosis makes many
family to enter poverty due to high treatment cost. Many people don’t know that they
have TB and without knowing, they spread it to others.

Contributing Factors
TB has so much spreading factors. These factors make the disease spread so fast. The
factors like overcrowding, weak immunity system, malnutrition, smoking, drinking and
untimely diagnosis contributes the most. Market places, hotels, fun parks are the most
crowded places. People have to walk so closely to other that they become infected
unknowingly.

Existing Efforts
Existing efforts are the global joint efforts. It describes about what the world is
collectively working to eliminate the disease. Many global program are working to
reduce the disease. They are conducting free tuberculosis treatment. They are providing
BCG vaccine to new born babies to prevent TB. They are also providing directly
observed treatment to patients to ensure that they are taking proper medicines on time
and everyday. World health organization has also been actively participating in
campaign providing awareness against TB to people.

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 Impact of Tuberculosis

Health Impact
Health impact mainly describes about how the people’s health is affected by this
disease. After getting infected by TB, many people show common symptoms like they
cough frequently for more than 2 weeks, they start noticing their weight is reducing, they
start having night sweat and fever, they often get tired and week. If this chronic disease
is not treated on time, it damages the brain and the person even loose the ability to
think and other brain activities.

Economic Impact
Economic impact mainly describes about how the economy of people is affected by TB.
Patients loose their jobs once the owner get to know that they are infected from TB.
Tuberculosis is like a trap for people because it traps the people in poverty. World bank
has also made a report on this, it states that the person once gets infected by TB lose
half of their yearly salary.

Social Impact
Social impact mainly describes about how the tuberculosis affects the social life and
status of infected people. People are afraid to tell that they have TB. Patients gets
rejected in workplaces also because of this disease. Women who are affected by TB
face a huge problems regarding their marriage. TB not only affects the health, but more
than that such as person’s confidence, respect and future also.

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 Solutions and Interventions

Global Health Plan

The goal of global health plan is to stop the spreading of tuberculosis and find a way to
cure TB. It aims to prevent new TB infections, find the people with TB early and treat
them until they are fully cured. It also ensure to support the patients socially and
financially so that they can complete the treatment process. This plan works on all level,
global national and local. In global level, it provides international funding, policies and
guidance. In national level, it provides country with proper plans to cure and campaigns
to treat the infected person.

Strategies
Strategy refers to the step on how the TB can be cured wholly. It can be prevented by
vaccination, children are given BCG vaccine to reduce TB in children. Improving living
conditions also prevent spread of TB. Better housing, less crowding and good
ventilation help reduce the spread. Free medicine and support help patients to cure the
disease so that they can take prescribes medicine and complete the treatment fully.
Using masks and having separate waiting areas in hospital and clinics also help lower
the spreading of this disease. Community education is a must. Public awareness should
be raised to reduce the stigma and encourage testing. Health workers should support
patients and should educated the patients how much chronic this disease is, and how
they can be treated, what medicine to take and how much time do they need to sit in
isolation. Laboratories should be well equipped for fast and accurate testing. Digital
tools also can be used for prevention like using digital record tracker to track the record
of the patients, so that they can know about the health status.

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Case Studies
The following are the case studies :
a. Patient Case Study : Suspected TB in a graduate student
Ann is a 25 years old graduate student from southeast asia. She went to the
hospital and said that she has been coughing frequently for 3 weeks, she also
has fever and also experienced weight loss. The hospital then checked her
and came to an evaluation showing her report,
 TB blood test : positive
 Chest x ray : cavity in lung
 Sputum smear : positive for acid fast bacilli
 Hiv Test : negative
 Nucleic acid amplification test : positive for M. tuberculosis

Based on this report, Ann was assumed that she has TB and with the proper
medication, she successfully got rid of TB.

b. Patient Case Study : Atypical TB

A 44 years old man went to the clinic with symptom such as progressive
shortness of breath and greenish sputum cough. His sputum test showed that
he had atypical TB. His hiv tests were also negative. He also said that he was
in good health till 1991 when he had atypical TB and because of using regular
TB medication, it was successfully treated. At clinic, he was prescribed other
antibiotics specific for TB. He was also recommended to take those
medicines for a year and also do a regular follow up.

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Implementation

Implementation tells how to make the plan work.

For short term plan, we can
 ensure all clinics and health post have basic infection control like masks
and ventilation
 provide free TB medicine for all poor families

For medium term plan, we can

 train numbers of health workers and community volunteers
 expand patient support programs for food and transport

For long term plan, we can

 achieve high treatment completion rates.
 strengthen national lab networks around the nation

For the proper implementation, proper money, people, supplies, systems and
partnerships are required. Stakeholders are those group that are involved in controlling
the situation. National governments, ministry of health, local health post and hospital,
international organizations like WHO, global fund and donors, private sectors like
laboratories.

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 Conclusion

Summary

Tuberculosis is one of the world’s biggest health problem. TB spreads through the air
and infects millions of people every second, every year. Even though this disease can
be cured, many people have to die because of late diagnosis, lack of awareness and
poverty. In this report, we discussed about the background of TB, what TB is, it’s history,
it’s effects, preventive measures. We also came to know that TB affects over 10 million
people every year. Mainly people of low incomes countries like India, Pakistan, Nigeria,
Somalia are affected the most. Tuberculosis is a very harmful disease which affects
health, also causes job loss and also causes social problems. We also came to know
that many different organizations and sectors are working to reduce this disease.
Tuberculosis is not causes health problems, but also social and economic problems. We
also came to know about the preventive measure of TB. Vaccination, early testing and
proper treatment and awareness activities should be done to reduce the problem.

Everyone has a role to end the spreading of this disease. Government must invest in
health sector more like doing medicine supply and proper lab equipments. Health
workers should provide awarness to people and individuals should listen to health
workers, do health checkup on time to time and also encourage other to do it.

The future can be better if we follow health plan seriously and the world can have no
more threat of TB. Ending TB is possible if we start the act right now.

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 References

 World Health Organization (WHO) (2023) Global Tuberculosis Report 2023

[Link] ( Accessed: 29th October 2025 ).

 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2024) Tuberculosis (TB)
[Link] ( Accessed: 1st November 2025 ).

 United Nations (2024) Sustainable Development Goal 3

[Link] ( Accessed: 2nd November 2025 ).

 The Global Fund (2023) Global Fund TB Results Report.

[Link] ( Accessed: 3rd November 2025 ).

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