Stanford-led study shows high TB risk in kids exposed to disease.

[2greys]

Stanford scientists led the first comprehensive effort since the 1940s to measure how likely children are to develop tuberculosis when a family member has the disease.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis has infected about a quarter of the world’s population, with most transmission occurring in close quarters. It causes tuberculosis, which kills more people than any other infectious disease worldwide. Young children exposed to tuberculosis are at surprisingly high risk of developing the disease, according to research led by the School of Medicine.

The findings, which was published online March 19 in The Lancet, come from the largest modern study to assess TB risk among children closely exposed to the disease. TB kills more people than any other infectious disease worldwide, including 205,000 children per year, according to the World Health Organization.

med.stanford.edu/news/all-n...

[Troilus]

I thought teens were tested for immunity. I guess that must have stopped.

[Jaybird19]

This is my experience

When we were children we had a visitor with active tb to stay for few days only. Now 70 yrs on my sister has been told of evidence in chest xray of having had tb in past though no tb was diagnosed then or later.

Tb is highly infective. I worked with it periodically from 1960 onward until 1996 . It took time to grow on culture . Up to six weeks routinely. Difficult to demonstrate with stain on a microscope slide. Had waxy coat that repelled the stain unless heated for 10 mins

. It needs long term treatment and has become resistant to many drugs used to treat it.

This organism thrives in the poor crowded living conditions that abound in the world today.