Acid-fast Bacilli

[Jolly]

Kansas outbreak...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/kansas-tuberculosis-outbreak-is-now-america-s-largest-in-recorded-history/ar-AA1xUsqI

[George K]

AFB, now there's a term I haven't heard in a few decades.

[taiwan_girl]

I remember reading a story about Saddam Hussein and he would make prisoners with tuberculosis spit in the mouths of other prisoners to give it to them also.

[jon-nyc]

@George-K said in Acid-fast Bacilli:

AFB, now there's a term I haven't heard in a few decades.

Last time I saw it was around the time you posted this. On my bronchoscopy report from yesterday. Results will trickle in over the coming days.

[Doctor Phibes]

I didn't realise they no longer vaccinate against TB. When I was a kid, I think everybody got the BCG.

[jon-nyc]

This thread reminds me - prior to transplant I had rare NTM (non-tubercular mycobacteria) colonization, called Mycobacterium Kansasii (Gram positive and acid fast, FWIW).

And another NTM called mycobacterium avium complex which is far more common.

I think medicine has twice saved my life (at least), the transplant itself and the trio of antibiotics I took (for a couple of years) which kept the two NTM infections at low enough levels to survive. It never eliminated them though, they were incinerated with my old lungs. I had to conitinue the antibiotics prophylactically for a few months to prevent colonization of the new set.