A Walsall team which supports and treats adults and children with Tuberculosis (TB) – a major infectious disease – is helping to raise awareness among the borough’s communities.
On World Tuberculosis Day, next Monday 24 March, staff from the TB Nursing Team at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust will host a stand near Costa Coffee in the Manor Hospital between 10am and 1pm.
They will highlight the potential symptoms which can include a cough lasting more than three weeks, high temperature or drenching night sweats, loss of appetite, unexplained weight loss and feeling tired or exhausted. And they will stress the importance of early detection and treatment.
Stephanie Willett, Lead TB Specialist Nurse, explained the team deals with all active, latent and suspected TB referrals. In Walsall in 2023 the service had 36 TB notifications and 77 latent TB cases, and in 2024 there were 46 TB notifications and 81 latent TB cases.
Latent TB is where people are infected with the TB bacteria, but do not have TB disease. The risk is that latent TB can become active making people ill and infectious to others.
“We want to play our part in raising awareness of TB in Walsall as cases continue to rise across the UK,” said Stephanie.
“Last year there were 5,480 people diagnosed in the UK, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. TB is an infection caused by bacteria. It mainly affects the lungs, but it can affect any part of the body, including lymph nodes (glands), bones and the brain, causing meningitis.
“TB spreads when a person with TB in their lungs or throat coughs or sneezes. Worldwide, it is the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, with more than 10 million people falling ill with TB every year and 1.4 million dying globally. “
World TB Day is commemorated each year on March 24, to build public awareness about the global epidemic of Tuberculosis. The date marks the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes TB which opened the way towards diagnosing and curing the disease.
Stephanie added: “TB affects some of our most vulnerable communities. There is a real complexity to providing TB care across healthcare settings and we’re proud that 100 per cent of Walsall patients are seen by our service within two weeks of referral on suspicion of TB.
“A total of 95 per cent of contacts with latent TB infection who start treatment successfully complete treatment and our service has a treatment completion rate of more than 97 per cent.
“We will be available in the hospital next Monday to raise awareness as part of the important worldwide focus.”