Here’s How to Help Eliminate TB Worldwide, This Weekend

Here’s How to Help Eliminate TB Worldwide, This Weekend

TB still kills thousands of people each year but it’s both treatable and preventable.

What are you doing this Saturday? It’s World TB Day on March 24th, and a time to take action.

Although tuberculosis is preventable and curable, over 9,000 people contract the dangerous disease each year in the U.S and 1.5 million people die from it annually, around the world.

Impressively, 53 million lives were saved from the grip of tuberculosis globally between 2000 and 2016, according to the World Health Organization, but experts hope to better that number in the years to come.

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In fact, by 2030 the WHO hopes that all countries worldwide will reduce the number of TB cases drastically-cases by 80%, and deaths by 90%.

First identified in 1882 by Dr. Robert Koch, TB is a disease that spreads through the air when someone coughs, sneezes or talks, and it attacks the lungs.

It’s usually cured by taking several medicines for a long period of time. Symptoms can include a cough that lasts longer than 3 weeks, weight loss, a loss of appetite, coughing up blood or mucus, feeling weak and tired, suffering from a fever and night sweats.

What can you do to help fight it? One of the simplest things available at your fingertips is participating in the CDC’s Thunderclap to end TB. All you have to do is offer your support via Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.

Visit this page set up by the CDC Division of Tuberculosis and click on your social media outlet of choice. You just supported the Thunder to eliminate TB! Follow the prompts onscreen to complete you ‘click’ of support.

Experts are hoping that by bringing increased awareness to the issue each year, governments and individuals will choose to put money behind eliminating the disease both in the U.S and worldwide.

Do you already know of someone who is a leader in helping to eliminate TB? Nominate a TB elimination champion here.

The CDC hopes to hear from “state and local health departments, homeless and correctional facilities, public health laboratories, and other organizations working to reach populations at risk for TB and latent TB infection, and the clinicians, health care agencies, and community organizations that serve them.”

Help make the world TB-free!

Photo credits: create jobs 51/Shutterstock.com

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