Tuberculosis also abbreviated as TB is a disease which is generally caused by bacteria under the scientific term mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacteria were isolated for the first time by Robert Koch, a German doctor in 1882. Thanks to this discovery, he was awarded with the Nobel prize. In most cases TB generally strikes the lungs but the bacteria can affect almost all body organs. Long time ago this disorder was viewed as consumption as, if a patient does not receive an effective treatment, he or she is just step by step wasting away. Surely nowadays tuberculosis can normally be successfully cured with the help of antibiotics.
There is a number of organisms which are typically named atypical tuberculosis. These include other bacteria forms which are in the class of mycobacterium. These organisms very often don’t evolve diseases and have the name colonizers, as they live together with other bacteria in the body and cause no damage at all. In some cases these bacteria are able to provoke an infection which is at times clinical like typical TB. If such atypical mycobacteria lead to infection, it is really hard to cure them. In most cases drug treatment for the organisms is to be used for a year and a half or for two years. The therapy should include multiple medicines.
People get infected with TB bacteria when they inhale from the air the particles of infected sputum. And how bacteria appear in the air is simple. These bacteria generally get into the air while somebody having a TB lung infection is coughing, sneezing, spitting, shouting. Individuals who are standing, sitting or whatever nearby are likely to breathe the TB bacteria into the lungs. TB is not transmitted through simple touching the clothing or shaking hands of a person that is infected. Tuberculosis is transmitted first of all from one person to another by inhaling the infected air.
Actually there is a type of atypical tuberculosis which can be transmitted via drinking milk that is non pasteurized. The bacteria named mycobacterium bovis can evolve this TB form. In recent times this bacteria type was the most common cause of tuberculosis in kids. However nowadays such bacteria only rarely lead to TB because most milk is pasteurized which means that it undergoes the process of heating and this destroys problem causing bacteria.