Tuberculosis is a highly infectious disease that affects millions of people worldwide, annually. This condition is transmitted from one person to another through spit droplets. When an infected person spits, sneezes or coughs, droplets of mucus or saliva are released into the air, these tiny droplets can then be inhaled by another person thus leading to an infection. However individuals that have inhaled the bacteria may not necessarily suffer from the illness although they are infected. The disease in such individuals is controlled and the bacteria lies dormant as their immune system successfully walls off the organisms. Such persons display no symptoms and are unable to transmit the disease. The bacteria however may kick in several years later, causing a full blown TB infection.
Treatment aimed towards prevention of tuberculosis, mainly involves killing the organisms which are currently dormant and doing no damage, but bear the potential of breaking lose in a few years to become active. Individuals that are treated to prevent the sickness, are prescribed a kind of prevention medication, which is to be had on a daily basis. You can consult your physician to discuss the possibility of being put on this particular medication. If your physician does prescribe it for you, then you will be required to take it for a period of one year, during which you will need to go for regular medical checkups, to ensure that it is not causing any unnecessary side effects and is being had as per the suggested dosage. In addition to this, the tuberculosis vaccine called BCG or bacille Calmette-Guérin is also used to prevent the disease from spreading in infants and in children. The BCG vaccine however, is not very effective in thwarting the adult forms of this condition and thus is not very often recommended or prescribed for usage in the US as well as other developed countries.