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You are in: Home > Chest Information > Chest Conditions > Tuberculosis >

Tuberculosis (TB)

• What is TB?
• Symptoms of TB

What is TB?

Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease which is usually caused by the germ mycobacterium tuberculosis. TB can be described as 'active' or 'latent'.

• If you have active TB this means that TB germs are alive and active within your body. Active TB is potentially infectious when TB affects your lungs (i.e. it can spread from one person to another) and requires treatment.
• If you have latent TB this means that, though you have live TB germs within your body, the germs are inactive (or 'dormant'). Latent TB is not infectious (i.e. it does not spread from one person to another), however, a small percentage of people with latent TB can go on to develop active, infectious TB at some point in the future.

TB can affect any part of the body but the lungs are most commonly affected. This form of TB is called pulmonary TB. Contact TB Alert for information about other forms of TB.

In the late 19th century over 7,000 people died from TB in Scotland each year. The use of vaccinations and better living conditions helped to make TB fairly uncommon by the 1980s. However, over the last 20 years the numbers of cases of TB in the UK has been slowly increasing.

Possible reasons for this increase include:

• Poverty and homelessness: especially in inner–city areas.
• Immigration to the UK from countries with a high incidence of TB.
• Increase of long–distance travel and flights: especially to countries where TB is more common.
• HIV infection is on the increase and it makes people more susceptible to developing TB.
• Lack of awareness of symptoms: people may not consider that their symptoms could be to do with TB.

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Symptoms of TB

The most common symptoms of active TB include:

• Persistent cough, lasting 3 weeks or longer, that gets progressively worse
• Weight loss with no obvious reason
• Persistent fever
• Night sweats
• Coughing up phlegm (sputum) with / without blood
• Loss of appetite
• Feeling generally tired and unwell

Remember that any of these symptoms could be due to another illness or condition. Latent TB does not have any symptoms.

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