Tuberculosis is a serious infectious disease that can attack many parts of a person's body, especially their lungs. Learn more about its causes, symptoms, treatment, and history from Cambridge Dictionary, with examples from literature and corpus. Tuberculosis (TB) germs spread through the air from one person to another. TB germs can get into the air when someone with active TB disease coughs, speaks, or sings. People nearby may breathe in these germs and become infected. People with inactive TB, also called latent TB infection, cannot spread TB germs to others. Tuberculosis, or TB, is a serious lung infection caused by bacteria. Learn about the symptoms, stages, causes, risk factors and prevention of TB, and how to treat it with antibiotics. Tuberculosis (TB) is the world’s top infectious killer. Nearly 4500 people lose their lives and 30 000 people fall ill with TB each day. TB is contagious and airborne. It is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to become infected.About one-quarter of the world's ...
