Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection. The tuberculosis bacterium is airborne. For transmission, you need a patient with an active form of tuberculosis and a space in which you will be in contact with him.
Tuberculosis bacteria fly out of a sick person when they cough, sneeze, and even normal conversation.
Tuberculosis bacteria, unlike the common cold, can fly through the air over long distances and soar for a long time in limbo. Here they can just fly into your apartment through the ventilation.
If you have no relatives with tuberculosis, and no one is sick at work, then it is difficult to pick up tuberculosis. But you can.
People who come into contact with sick people 4 hours a week or longer have a good chance of getting infected. This happens, for example, at school.
If you have little time, but really want to get infected with tuberculosis, it will be easier if you already have sugar diabetes, or you already had immune problems, or are underweight, or are taking glucocorticoids, or smoke.
How to understand that you managed to get sick
There may be a cough for more than three weeks, bloody sputum, weight loss, night sweats.
If a person falls ill with tuberculosis, then he will spread it to others.
But they usually infect their pets through the air. Tuberculosis is NOT infected by eating dishes, shaking hands, hugging or using a toilet seat.
Not all people who catch the TB bacteria will get sick. The bacterium can just live and wait in the wings. If unlucky, then after a few years the bacterium is activated and the person becomes ill.
If a person has such latent tuberculosis, when bacteria are sitting and doing nothing, then he will have positive all kinds of tests like Mantoux, but the person will not be contagious. There is no need to hide from him and it is not necessary to divorce him either.
Most likely someone will have to be examined. Chest x-ray, sputum analysis, everything. This is managed by a phthisiatrician.
And another important trick - tests and reactions like Mantoux are done to those who are ready to be fed with anti-tuberculosis drugs on occasion.
Therefore, check with a specialist and do not go to laboratories yourself. If for your own money you get a false positive test unnecessarily, then phthisiatricians will turn you inside out.
