What is TB?

Have you heard of tuberculosis? It’s often called TB for short.

Tuberculosis is an infection caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This is a bacterium or germ that mainly affects the lungs, though it can harm any part of the body. Although you can get ill with TB, it can be cured by finishing a course of antibiotics.

Stories from people who have had TB...

Types of TB

The most common type of TB is in the lungs, known as pulmonary TB. Only TB of the lungs or throat can be infectious. TB can affect any part of the body including kidneys, brain or bones. This is called non-pulmonary TB – and is not infectious.

How is TB spread?

People get TB when they breathe in the TB bacteria, which are spread through the air. But most people won’t get ill because:

  • TB bacteria are only in the air after someone with infectious TB coughs or sneezes.
  • You need to spend many hours close to a person with infectious TB to breathe in enough bacteria to be at risk.
  • Most people's immune systems are strong enough to kill off TB bacteria.

You cannot get TB by sharing cutlery, bedding or clothes.

 

How common is TB in the UK?

TB cases in the UK are still low – but they have been rising since the 1980s – each year:

  • roughly 8,500 people find out that they are ill with TB
  • nearly everyone is successfully cured with a free course of treatment

What is the picture globally?

Around the world 1.7 million people die of TB.  Mainly because they cannot get the drugs that would make them better. 

Take action against TB

Knowing about tuberculosis will help you to look out for yourself and those close to you.

Click here to read about Latent TB:

Some people may have been infected with TB, but not become unwell.  This is latent TB.  Like TB illness, latent TB occurs when someone breathes in the TB bacteria that has been coughed or sneezed out by someone with infectious TB. However, their immune system is keeping the bacteria under control, stopping that person from becoming unwell. A person with latent TB is not ill and does not have symptoms, they cannot pass on TB to others. Very few people with latent TB will ever go on to develop the illness.  Only people at greater risk of getting ill from latent TB will be put on treatment.  These are people with weaker immune systems – such as children and people living with HIV.