gruźlica

epidemiologia

hospitalizacja

Pulmonary tuberculosis is a contagious disease caused by Mycobacterium tubeculosis, which was discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch. The source of infection is primarily sputum-positive patients, and more rarely animals or objects. Mycobacteria enter into the human respiratory system by the droplet route. While coughing, sneezing or spitting, an infected person secretes mycobacteria, which may penetrate into the lungs of another person together with the air inhaled. The penetration of mycobacte-ria is not equivalent to infection, and infection does not always lead to the disease; the illness may also take a different course in individual people. The diagnosis of tuberculosis is made based on taking a patient’s medical history, radiological tests, sputum tests for Koch’s mycobacteria, and examination of the sensitiveness to tubeculin. Poland is among the European countries where morbidity rates due to pulmonary tubeculosis are relatively high. Considering all-Polish data, the number of cases of tuberculosis is constantly decreas-ing (from 11,477 cases in 2000 to 8,593 in 2006), while in the Lublin Region this number has re-mained on a relatively constant level, only slightly changing (781 in 2000 - 784 in 2006). The highest rates are observed in the Regions of Lublin, Łódź and Kielce. In 2006, the lowest rates were noted in the Poznań Region (11.0), whereas the highest rates were observed in the Lublin Region, these rates being over three times as high (36.0). In the Lublin Region, a high number of new cases of tuberculosis have been registered; this dis-ease therefore constitutes a serious epidemiological problem.