This piece takes a look at how the infectious disease is caused and spread from one person to another. Tuberculosis or better still TB is caused by bacteria that spread from person to person through microscopic droplets released into the air.
This happens when an infected person coughs, speaks, sneezes, spits, laughs or sings. The type of bacteria that causes Tuberculosis (TB) is known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Although TB is spread in a similar way to a cold or flu, it is not as contagious as we were made to believe. You would have to spend several hours in close contact with an infected person to catch the infection yourself.
For example, TB infections usually spread between family members who live in the same house. It would be highly unlikely for you to become infected by sitting next to an infected person on, for instance, a bus or train.
Sometimes close coworkers can also get infected. But this only means that you need to spend so many hours together with an infected person in order to be infected yourself.
However, Not everyone with TB is infectious. Children with TB or people with a TB infection that occurs outside the lungs do not spread the infection.
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