Is TB Contagious?

Posted on Fri, 13 Nov 2015

Question: Is TB contagious?
My child is staying with her grand parents. Doctor is suspecting TB for her grand father since he is having continuous fever and cough for more than one month. I am worried whether my daughter will be affected. She is just 1.5years old.

Answered by Dr. Saddiq Ulabidin (7 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Yes! It is contagious

Detailed Answer:
Hi! Welcome to health care magic!

Thanks for sharing your concerns. Yes it is highly contagious, and when TB is diagnosed in family, in normal protocol, all family should be screened with a chest Xray and ESR.

If there is a proven case of TB in family, precaution sjould be taken specially in first two months of treatment with ATT, until 3 consecutive sputum cultures for AFB are proved to be negative. A mask should be worn by the affected individual to avoid droplet infection source.

If she is attached to her grand parents, kindly with all these precautions you can let her meet each other, and don't isolate them until string suspicion is there, or TB is proven on CXR, very high ESR or CT scan confirms it.

Hope this has answered your query. If you have any more concerns in future, you can reach me directly through my profile. Regards.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad