London, 29 (IANS). A new revelation has been made regarding deaths due to TB in England. A new study has revealed that every week one person in England dies due to non-diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in time. In such cases, the disease is detected only after death (during post-mortem), due to which the patient does not get the opportunity for treatment.
This research has been published in the journal Thorax. According to the researchers, men born in Britain and older were diagnosed with TB after death. This indicates that health workers are not paying enough attention to the possibility of TB in these patients.
Experts said the diagnosis of TB after death should be considered a “never event”, that is, an event that should not occur under any circumstances and should be investigated immediately. He described this as “the biggest delay in diagnosis”.
The rate of TB cases in England has reached its highest level in the last 10 years. It recorded 9.4 cases per 100,000 population in 2024, which is very close to the World Health Organization (WHO) threshold for a “low infection country”.
According to media outlet The Guardian, generally most TB patients in England are foreign-born and their average age is 36 years. But the study, published in the journal Thorax, found that those diagnosed with TB after death were mostly Britain-born and older.
According to Dr Eleanor Morgan, co-author of the study and resident doctor at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, “As the number of TB cases continues to rise, we need to keep asking the question of every patient: ‘Could this be TB?’ “Even if he doesn’t fall into the normal risk group.”
The study found that TB diagnosed after death was more likely to occur in people who lived outside London and had a history of alcohol or drug abuse.
Additionally, the risk was also found to be higher in children under four years of age. According to researchers, this may be due to their immature immune system, symptoms that appear normal and difficulty in collecting samples from young children for testing.
TB still remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease. In the year 2024, about 12.3 lakh people died due to TB, while 1.07 crore people got infected with this disease.
However, TB is a preventable and completely curable disease. It is treatable with special antibiotics, and in recent years with the help of new drugs, the treatment period for even drug-resistant TB has been significantly reduced.
Dr. Tom Wingfield, senior author of the study and from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said in his research paper that just as deaths caused by superbugs such as MRSA or Clostridioides difficile are routinely investigated in the NHS, every TB-related death should also be thoroughly investigated so that such deaths can be prevented in the future.
He said that the increasing cases of TB in England is a matter of concern because late detection of the disease has a serious impact on the health, social and economic status of the patient and also increases the possibility of spreading the infection to others. However, he clarified that it is not a matter of panic, because successful treatment of TB is possible.
–IANS
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