The Global Health Problem – Tuberculosis

Research has it that tuberculosis kills more than 1.7 million annually and hence medical professionals have come up with a new testing method which uses urine to determine if one is diagnosed with tuberculosis (Mcneil, 2018). Tuberculosis is also termed as a lung disease which affects so many people around the world.The author argues that a group of researchers are determined to introduce the urine testing method which will be helpful for doctors to detect the existence of tuberculosis amongst patients easily. The procedure of testing tuberculosis with urine has also been experimented by Gorge Mason University scientists who instead of urine used a sugar shed to detect the tuberculosis bacteria. So far, the experiment has been 100 times successful, and this shows that there is some hope for the implementation of the urine test.

Furthermore, tuberculosis has been proven to be killing more people in a year as compared to AIDs and hence there should be immediate action on how to test it amongst patients and administer treatment immediately. It is also known to be transmitted faster, and some of its significant signs and symptoms include the development of simultaneous coughs that irritate the throat (Mcneil, 2018). One may even spit blood as they cough and this only shows its seriousness within the patient. Therefore, if the tuberculosis bacteria can be detected quickly, then more people around the world would be saved, and the death rates would even decrease.

The global health problem discussed in the article is the prevalence of tuberculosis around the world. It also presents the current health developments that are to be implemented so that its incidence may go down. For many years now, tuberculosis has always been tested with chest x-rays, blood tests, skin tests and sputum reading. These methods are losing importance, and therefore it is now a global concern for the World Health Organization to implement the new urine test method which has been proved to detect the tuberculosis bacteria easily.

One of the factors that have contributed to the increased prevalence of tuberculosis is the fact the spread of the tuberculosis bacteria happens in a faster way. Another reason is that many people take too long to be diagnosed with the bacteria, and hence they end up passing on because of lack of immediate medical attention. Additionally, another factor is that many countries around the world do not have the latest access to the urine test and this means that more people will continue to be affected by tuberculosis hence their death rates are not likely to reduce. Lastly, some countries also lack the use of technologically based machines such as the GeneXpert which are known to help with the detection of the disease more effectively (Mcneil, 2018).

Therefore, many researchers have undertaken studies to learn more about the best means of detecting tuberculosis bacteria as soon as possible so that patients may always be treated before the situation gets worse. To control the increasing number of deaths of tuberculosis patients, some hospitals prefer to use the urine test because it is easily accessible as compared to mucus, blood and skin cells. This means that they can administer diagnosis by a faster means hence start treatment to reduce the deaths of patients. Therefore, many countries are working towards achieving the urine testing method so that they may evade all the difficulties they encounter as they treat their patients.

In conclusion, the author lists the advantages of the urine testing method over the other such as blood and skin and claims that urine is more available and accessible amongst many patients; hence it should be adopted more.

Cite this page