|
|
||
|
|
HEALTH
Tuberculosis Control
Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly communicable disease that primarily affects the lungs. Its symptoms are often not evident until the disease has progressed into an advanced contagious stage. Therefore, early detection is most important in trying to prevent the spread of the disease. In the past, mass chest x-ray screening was considered the best method of case finding and was used most frequently with sections of the population known to have a high prevalence of the disease. Such mass screenings are no longer considered cost effective. Physicians now administer a tuberculin skin test to determine past or present tubercular infection.
During the first half of the 20th century, hospitalization and isolation was the medical treatment provided TB patients. Today most patients are treated on an outpatient basis with as many as four medications administered over an extended period of time. Because of the difficulty many patients have adhering to such a complex course of treatment, standard patient care requires patients be directly observed when medicines are taken. Some visit the city's Flick Center for the Treatment of Tuberculosis for their medications. Others are visited in their homes by field workers who ensure that the medications are taken properly.
Chart showing death rates from
tuberculosis, 1900-1920.
By the early 1900s TB had become the leading cause of death in Philadelphia. The National Tuberculosis Association, now called the American Lung Association, was founded in Philadelphia in 1904. Through an Act of City Council, the Department of Public Health established its Division of Tuberculosis in 1923.
Tuberculosis has fallen to an all-time low in the United States. However, in other parts of the world, such as Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union, major threats to the global public health exist in the form of multi-drug resistant strains of tuberculosis which are easily spread through international travel by contagious persons.
