TB Anywhere is TB Everywhere

Posted 03/20/2007

Opinion By Dr. Ana Lòpez-DeFede A research associate professor at the Institute for Families in Society, Dr. Lopez-De Fede is an adjunct faculty member in the department of pediatrics at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. She was appointed to the Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

On March 24, I will join a worldwide chorus of individuals fighting to increase awareness of tuberculosis. The World Health Organization (WHO) tells us that one in every three people in the world is infected with TB, eight million people will become sick with the disease every year and two million will die.

Yet, unlike many diseases, we can stop this one if we act now to increase awareness and enact an effective, well-funded plan.

TB is not just a problem in developing nations. Out of the 50 U.S. states, South Carolina ranks sixth highest in the number of cases per 100,000 people.

 Our public-health officials are doing a great job of controlling TB, but unless we can control TB globally, we won't be able to control it here. There are many diseases that currently ravage the people of the world and many for which we are still seeking cures.

TB is not one of these diseases. TB can be prevented, cured and wiped out today.

Why is TB still an issue in the United States and, more importantly, in South Carolina? This can be explained in part by the lack of awareness and education available to the populations at risk.

In 1931, Modjeska Simkins entered the field of public health as the director of Negro Work for the S.C. Anti-Tuberculosis Association and became the state's only full-time, statewide African-American public- health worker. For decades prior to the 1930s, there was an alarming number of deaths among African Americans due to tuberculosis and other illnesses.

While medical advances have made it possible to prevent, treat and eliminate tuberculosis, TB continues to take a heavy toll on African Americans in South Carolina – representing more than half of active cases of tuberculosis in the state. We must continue the work begun by this public-health leader in South Carolina.

At the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, the Amaya-Lacson TB Photovoice Project is working to make positive changes for individuals and families affected by TB. Cameras are given to TB patients so that they can chronicle the people, events and places important in their lives. The pictures give a face and voice to the disease.

This project -- under way in Thailand, South America, Texas and South Carolina -- was created by Romel Lacson after the death of his wife, Dr. Claudia Amaya-Lacson, a physician who was exposed to TB at a clinic where she worked in Colombia, South America. In 2004, when she became pregnant, Amaya-Lacson developed an active and deadly form of the disease -- TB meningitis. Her death underscores that TB is a disease that knows no boundaries – no race, no gender, no social class.

TB is a serious public-health problem that affects everyone in our community, and it is important that all of us understand the myths and realities the disease. Most people associate the disease with an infection in the lungs. But TB also can be found in other parts of the body, including the bones, joints and central nervous system. More than one-third of the world’s population has the bacterium that causes TB, but the disease can remain dormant for years.

Symptoms include weight loss, decrease in appetite, night sweats and prolonged
fever. Anyone who has been exposed to a person with an active case of TB should be tested. And anyone diagnosed with TB must take the full course of medication required to treat the disease.

TB doesn’t have to kill.

This year, the theme for World TB Day is “TB Anywhere Is TB Everywhere.” Join me in the fight to raise awareness about tuberculosis. Together we can wipe out this deadly disease. .