Tuberculosis is mostly curable but without proper treatment about two thirds of people who get TB will die. Since 2000, about 79 million lives have been saved through effective diagnosis and treatment. Most people who have TB disease can be cured with a course of 4 antimicrobials lasting 6 months, or even 4 months in some cases. Information, supervision and patient support by a health worker or trained volunteer are key to a successful outcome. Tuberculosis (TB) is an illness caused by a bacterial infection. It commonly affects your lungs, but it can also affect other areas of your body like your spine, brain or kidneys. Tuberculosis is a serious infectious disease that can attack many parts of a person's body, especially their lungs. Learn more about its causes, symptoms, treatment, and history from Cambridge Dictionary, with examples from literature and corpus. This term has sometimes been used interchangeably with “active tuberculosis casefinding”. It should be distinguished from testing for TB infection (with a TB skin test or interferon gamma release assay) (3) Tuberculosis disease: the disease caused by the M. tuberculosis complex, sometimes referred to as TB or “active TB”.
