Tuberculosis: Background, Strategies, Policies, and Ethical Considerations

Tuberculosis

Table of Contents
Background of the public health issue identified in the group presentation....................................1
Strategies used to measure, monitor and control the incidence.......................................................1
Current public health policy approaches to reduce or control incidence.........................................2
Models and Theories of health behaviour change...........................................................................4
Impact of legislation and policies on the health and wellbeing of individuals in health or social
care settings......................................................................................................................................5
Ethical considerations......................................................................................................................5
Recommendations............................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

Background of the public health issue identified in the group presentation
Tuberculosis (TB) can be defined as a health condition which is caused by a bacterium for
developing infection and start damaging lungs. It includes the condition of contagious infection
which is responsible to mainly affect lungs that may spread in other parts of human body
including spine as well as brain. Basically, the health problem of tuberculosis is caused by a
bacterium named Mycobacterium tuberculosis among people. It consist the different types of
tuberculosis such as latent TB and active TB that occurs among citizens (Gilpin and et. al.,
2018). Initially, it involves latent TB in which germs are present in human body but immune
system keeps them from spreading and person has no symptoms as they are not contagious.
Secondly, it includes the active TB when germs multiply and make an individual sick and patient
with active TB are contagious in terms of spreading the same to others. It is observed that around
90 % of active cases in adult people come from a latent infection of tuberculosis. However, it has
been identified that tuberculosis has number of symptoms such as chest pain, coughing up blood,
feeling tired all the time, night sweats, chills, fever, loss of appetite, weight loss and a cough that
lasts more than 3 weeks.
In addition to this, a healthy immune system is required to fight with bacterium of TB but a
person cannot overcome easily with active TB if they have some of severe health problems. It
includes the complicated health issues like diabetes, severe kidney disease, head & neck cancers,
cancer treatment like chemotherapy, low body weight & poor nutrition, medications for organ
transplants, HIV or AIDS and certain drugs for treating rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and
psoriasis. Meanwhile, it consist the use of appropriate diagnosing methods including skin test
and blood test in order to evaluate the presence of TB bacterium and severity of an individual. It
involves the criterion of carrying out the further diagnosis if the blood and skin test results
positive (Migliori and et. al., 2018). Moreover, it has been identified that chest X-ray or CT Scan
are required to be carried out to evaluate changes into lungs and acid-fast bacillus (AFB) tests for
TB bacterium in sputum which helps to make accurate decision of treatment for making patient
wellbeing.
Strategies used to measure, monitor and control the incidence.
Tuberculosis can be considered as a major health problem among public that requires proper
clinical procedures and strategies in order to measure, monitor and control the relevant
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