XDA

TB and Drug-resistant TB are on the increase. Doctors here have been told to watch out for it.
My own doctor has told me that she has 6 people who have TB as patients at the moment.
One of the problems was the west erradicated TB years ago, and could have done it around the world, i.e., in poor and developing countries with some fairly cheap vaccine, but we chose not to, not our concern.
However, this decision has come back to haunt us, as the TB strain has evolved, and with immigration and easy travel by flight, it is back, but stronger.
At least, this is the explanation my doctor gave me.
An added problem is that countries like the UK stopped routinely vaccinating kids against TB years ago.
Now, TB is on the rise again. One of the problems about illegal immigration in the UK is that illegal immigrants are missed by the health service, and TB is highly infectous.
Not that I believe that there are masses of illegal immigrants, but one person with TB can infect a lot of unvaccinated people.
 

Thanks again for your loyal reading and helpful comments. Zeppellina, I am confused. There's a vaccine for TB? Nothing I read talked about that at all. They talked about drugs to use once symptoms showed. Do I have to go back? If so, where should I go to learn what you know?
 

Wow! Thanks seeker, for the info!

When I grew up in the UK, TB was still quite prevelant. It was at the stage where people no longer talked about it, bad subject, but, occasionally a kid would just disappear from school, along with all of their belongings!
We would hear whispers later!
We all routinely got the BCG vaccine as standard, there was no "would you like to have it" There were no options.
However, being scared of injections, I decided they weren`t getting me, as some people seemed to take a bad reaction to it, and I was having none of it!
I feigned illness to my mum, and was conveniently off school "ill" when the team of nurses turned up at the school. It was easy to slip through the system, as no follow up seemed to happen.
Stupid really, as the area I grew up in still had a higher than average incidence of TB.
Lately, alarmed at hearing that TB was on the increase, I spoke to my doctor, and explained that I had not been vaccinated, and she felt that it would make sense to do it now, and made an appointment at the dept of the hosp who deal with that.
However, The hospital informed me that they no longer vaccinate people over 40 (ouch!), and that in all likelyhood, if I grew up in that area, escaped vaccination, and never contracted TB that I must have been naturally exposed to the virus and built up an immunity to it, otherwise I would have contracted it before now.
I didn`t feel altogether reassured by this explanation, but what can you do?!!
It would appear, though, that BCG`s as compulsory injections for kids in the UK, stopped quite a while back now.
The sad bit is that it is definately on the increase in the UK again.
Appreciated the information, seeker!
 

I must confess, my Health Centre is one of the largest in the City,with many separate surgeries, and, knowing there are TB cases on their books, I try not to sit in the waiting room beside the `ill people`, choosing to hang about outside in the corridor until I am called, which must look a bit strange!
Although, going into the waiting room can have its fun moments.
One day, noticed 2 posters on the door, side by side. They both had large bright titles, with much smaller text underneath.
One said, "Depressed, Feel you can`t take it anymore?" And the one right next to it said "Jump off the top of the Hilton!"
The second poster was about a Charity bungee jump from the very tall Hotel.
Suggested to my Doctor that they might need to review where they put their posters...they said "Whoops!"...and laughed a lot!
One of life`s silly little moments.