Like every year March 24 if you celebrate the World Tuberculosis Daycreated to raise public awareness of the dramatic health, social and economic consequences caused by this disease and to intensify efforts to eliminate this global epidemic.
THE INFECTIOUS DISEASES OPERATIONAL UNIT OF THE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF FERRARA (directed by Dr. Marco Lebanonre, in the photo) is present in the treatment of this pathology with clinical and outpatient activity. The Sant’Anna Department follows several dozen cases of tuberculosis annually and carries out antituberculosis chemoprophylaxis activity in people with latent infection at risk of developing full-blown disease. The Operating Unit of the Cona hospital is the only one equipped with negative pressure isolation rooms for the hospitalization of highly contagious bacilliferous forms. There Clinical Microbiology Section of the Cona hospitalwith which the Department collaborates on a daily basis, provides important diagnostic support, also allowing the identification of any forms of resistance, favoring a modulated treatment in relation to the atypical profiles found.
Together with Infectious Diseases, in the treatment of these patients, the Pneumology of the Cona Hospital and that of the Territory also collaborate (directed respectively by Prof. Alberto Papi and Dr. Marco Contoli).
THE PATHOLOGY. Tuberculosis (TB) is the oldest and most famous disease afflicting humanity. Considered to have disappeared in the recent past, it is still the most widespread infectious disease globally, with 10 million new cases per year and 4,500 deaths per day. In Italy the data are fortunately lower, with around 3,000 cases per year, but unfortunately stable, due to the emergence of new problems, such as multidrug resistance and the presence of ever new risk factors, such as for example the combination of diabetes and TB or immunosuppression and tuberculosis. Tuberculosis remains a disease with important social implications linked to marginalization, poor hygiene, poverty, malnutrition and stigma, often generating revulsion towards those who are ill. The important thing is to know that tuberculosis is easily treatable and at more than affordable costs. Since this is an infection that requires prolonged and complex treatment, the greatest difficulties are related to compliance and the adherence of the patients concerned, belonging, as has been observed in our reality, especially in recent years, to the most disadvantaged strata of the population.