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Communicable Disease and Epidemiology

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Communicable Disease and Epidemiology

Communicable Disease and Epidemiology As part of human history, there have always been disease processes that have been known to pass from a person or something else to other people through physical contact, sharing most any item with an infected person or just breathing the same air where the disease exists, these disease processes are known as communicable diseases. Basically, communicable diseases are diseases that you can catch from other organisms. There are noted to be approximately 165 known communicable diseases in the environment (Wisconsin, 2014). The disease addressed in this paper is known as Tuberculosis (TB). Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the bacteria that cause TB. This particular bacteria is not passed through physical contact with an infected person but rather is passed through airborne transmission as an infected person talks, coughs, or sneezes. The mode of transmission for TB is known as airborne transmission. In the hospital setting a person suspected to have or proven to have TB will be placed on airborne precautions and located in a negative pressure room where the air is continually being pulled from the room and replaced with fresh air. The health care professional (HCP) taking care of the person suspected to have TB is to wear a special respiratory mask known as an N95 mask as well as a gown, gloves. These masks are fit tested yearly to improve the safety of the HCP. A person having active TB can spread the disease to others and symptoms can appear within a few weeks of exposure, or it may occur years later. Active TB symptoms include cough, unintentional weight loss, fatigue, fever, night sweats, chills and loss of appetite (MAYO, 2014). Latent TB is a condition where a person has been infected but cannot infect others. The TB bacteria is dormant and the person has no symptoms, but it is

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