Tuberculosis

In January I attended a seminar by Gary Porter Jones from Public Health Wales NHS Trust on tuberculosis, including treatment and care for patients with the infection.

What is tuberculosis?

The first section of this talk was dedicated to ensuring that each student in the room fully understood that this particular illness is caused by a mycobacterium complex, this complex includes M. tuberculosis, M. bovis and M. africanum. I thought that this approach was excellent as even though the talk was aimed at biology students there were also students that did not have a biological background at the talk. By doing this he made the seminar accessible to everyone.

Tuberculosis Transmission

The main way to catch this disease is via contaminated water droplets in the air such as those expelled during breathing or singing. You need to be in close contacted with a patient that has active tuberculosis for prolonged periods of time in order to become infected.

Due to the slow division rate of the bacteria, in 95% of cases the infected individual is able to supress the bacteria. This is then known as latent tuberculosis.

One third of the human population is thought to have a tuberculosis infection, a majority of these are latent tuberculosis.

In the other 5% of cases the bacteria continue to multiply, and this then becomes active tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment

IGRA tests are available, these are blood tests that indicate the present of Mycobacterium.

If the test comes back positive for tuberculosis, then treatment can commence for at least the next six months to ensure the bacterium has been fully eradicated.

My Thoughts and My Career

I thought that during this talk Gary Porter Jones was very engaging and willing to answer any questions that were asked. The information in this talk was relayed in such a way that it was accessible to all the students who went, even though I have had lectures on tuberculosis previously in a module last year I still felt that I left this seminar with more knowledge that I had entered with on this subject.

I found this talk to be a very useful talk to attend as it gave me an insight into a different area of biology that I hadn’t previously thought about. The idea that there is a possibility in the future for me to use my knowledge gained during my biology degree to inform others is a field that I have not previously looked into. In addition to this I thought that the topic of the talk was very informative as it did a good job at highlighting tuberculosis within the UK.

I have had an interest in microorganisms since the start of university and this talk has increased my interest. In addition to this by going to this talk I have realised that there are many different pathways that I can take that do not include research but still allow me to work in an area that interests me.

If you want more information on tuberculosis click here