Trotman: Covid19 vaccines safe for TB patients

PEOPLE suffering with latent or active tuberculosis (TB) can safely take a World Health Organization (WHO)-approved covid19 vaccine. Thoracic care medical specialist at Caura Hospital Dr Michelle Trotman gave this assurance during the virtual covid19 news conference on Saturday.

TB is a potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects the lungs. It is spread through the air from one person to another. The TB germs are passed through the air when someone who is sick with the disease coughs, laughs, sings, or sneezes.

TB has three stages- exposure, latent (TB bacteria lives in a person's body but the person does not get sick), and active (TB bacteria multiplies in the body and the person becomes sick)

Symptoms of TB are a cough that lasts more than three weeks, loss of appetite and unintentional weight loss, fever, chills and night sweats.

Trotman said the good news about latent and active TB is that they are curable, with antibiotics being used to treat it. She observed there are similarities between TB and covid19 symptoms.

The latter include fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting and diarrhoea

Trotman observed there are some differences between TB and covid19 symptoms. "Cough with TB tends to be productive (produces mucus) and tends to be bloodstained, Cough with covid can be productive but often more dry." Patients with TB experience weight loss but covid19 patients may not.

Trotman said to date there have been 17 cases of people with TB who contracted covid19. "Of those 17, we have had only one death." Both TB and covid19 can be treated with vaccinations

Trotman said, "It is safe to receive the covid19, unless stated by your physician for some other reason."

Since 1997, Trotman said the WHO has published data on TB cases in over 190 countries. In2020, she continued, the WHO reported over 10 million TB cases. Last year, TT had 121 cases.

"Globally to date, covid 19 has attacked more than 430 million. Covid19 has now upstaged TB which used to be the number one cause of death, from an infectious point of view worldwide."

She added, "In TT to date, we have 126,000 plus (covid19 ) cases." Trotman also said TB is more likely to affect men than women.