Tuberculosis how long

Sometimes the immune system cannot kill the bacteria, but manages to prevent it spreading in the body. You will not have any symptoms, but the bacteria will remain in your body. This is known as latent TB. People with latent TB are not infectious to others. If the immune system fails to kill or contain the infection, it can spread within the lungs or other parts of the body and symptoms will develop within a few weeks or months.

This is known as active TB. Latent TB could develop into an active TB disease at a later date, particularly if your immune system becomes weakened. With treatment, TB can almost always be cured. A course of antibiotics will usually need to be taken for 6 months.

Several different antibiotics are used because some forms of TB are resistant to certain antibiotics. The TB bacteria are put into the air when a person with active TB disease of the lungs or throat coughs, sneezes, speaks, or sings. You cannot get TB from. If you think you have been exposed to someone with TB disease, you should contact your doctor or local health department about getting a TB skin test or a special TB blood test.

Be sure to tell the doctor or nurse when you spent time with the person who has TB disease. It is important to know that a person who is exposed to TB bacteria is not able to spread the bacteria to other people right away. Only persons with active TB disease can spread TB bacteria to others.

Before you would be able to spread TB to others, you would have to breathe in TB bacteria and become infected. Then the active bacteria would have to multiply in your body and cause active TB disease.

At this point, you could possibly spread TB bacteria to others. The bacteria that cause tuberculosis are spread from person to person through tiny droplets released into the air via coughs and sneezes. Once rare in developed countries, tuberculosis infections began increasing in , partly because of the emergence of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

HIV weakens a person's immune system, so it can't fight the TB germs. In the United States, because of stronger control programs, tuberculosis began to decrease again in But it remains a concern. Many tuberculosis strains resist the drugs most used to treat the disease. People with active tuberculosis must take many types of medications for months to get rid of the infection and prevent antibiotic resistance.

Although your body can harbor the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, your immune system usually can prevent you from becoming sick. For this reason, doctors make a distinction between:. Tuberculosis can also affect other parts of your body, including the kidneys, spine or brain. When TB occurs outside your lungs, signs and symptoms vary according to the organs involved. For example, tuberculosis of the spine might cause back pain, and tuberculosis in your kidneys might cause blood in your urine.

See your doctor if you have a fever, unexplained weight loss, drenching night sweats or a persistent cough. These are often indications of TB but can also result from other conditions. Also, see your doctor if you think you've been exposed to TB. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who have an increased risk of tuberculosis be screened for latent TB infection.

This recommendation includes people who:. Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria that spread from person to person through microscopic droplets released into the air. This can happen when someone with the untreated, active form of tuberculosis coughs, speaks, sneezes, spits, laughs or sings.

Although tuberculosis is contagious, it's not easy to catch. You're much more likely to get tuberculosis from someone you live or work with than from a stranger. Most people with active TB who've had appropriate drug treatment for at least two weeks are no longer contagious.