Noin the first half of 2023 in UK tuberculosis cases grew by 7 percent and theWorld Health Organization underlined how in 2021, deaths from tuberculosis have started to rise in Europe. AND in Italy? There are 4 thousand cases a year: mostly migrants, who arrive from areas where tuberculosis is widespread, or become ill due to hardship during the journey or upon arrival; or elderly, infected many years ago.
Tuberculosis on the rise, is it worrying?
Are these numbers worrying?
«When you come into contact with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, in 90 percent of cases the disease does not develop because the immune system “walls off” the germ in the lungs. Here it remains latent, often forever; only 10 percent of those infected show tuberculosis, even after many years” says Federico Gobbi, director of the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases of the IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria of Negrar.
«The infection develops if the immune system weakens: due to therapy, a concomitant disease, age…: the “wall” around the bacillus crumbles and low-grade fever, a cough that doesn’t go away, tiredness may appear. Therefore, before starting immunosuppressive therapies (following a transplant or to treat autoimmune diseases, ed.) the positivity to the bacillus must be verified, which, if necessary, can be eliminated with antibiotic treatment. Those who have latent tuberculosis, however, are neither sick nor contagious: only those who have the “reactivated” disease are because at that point the bacterium can be released into the environment and breathed in by others.”
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