24-03-2025
Sentara doctor says asbestos on Hampton Roads shipyards can spark tuberculosis
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — While tuberculosis has options for prevention and is curable, more than 1 million people die from the disease on a global scale annually, making it the world's leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, according to the World Health Organization.
And with President Donald Trump on the verge of cutting foreign aid, on World Tuberculosis Day, the future of research and treatment looks grim.
'It will certainly curtail a lot of the new treatments that we have for tuberculosis, especially funding in parts of the world that doesn't have the resources,' said Dr. Sherif El-Mahdy with Sentara.
Piling on to the problem is a surge of TB now circulating worldwide.
'We are certainly seeing some resurgence of tuberculosis cases now, and a lot of especially drug-resistant tuberculosis,' he said. 'The problem with tuberculosis is that it is a very slowly growing organism.'
The treatment ranges from six months up to a year, with many people not completing the duration of therapy.
'That's a real challenge here in this country,' El-Mahdy said. 'It's easier to administer because of all the resources that we have. And in other parts of the world, it may be difficult to have somebody watch that patient take those medicines in the scheduled time. '
El-Mahdy describes TB as a mimic that affects every system in the body.
'Once it sets host in the lungs, it can spread to various other organs,' he said. 'And that's why the classic teaching is that it's a differential diagnosis of any infection in the body.'
The amount a person should get screened is dependent up on their exposure — for instance, patients on dialysis, patients who are going to skilled nursing facilities or patients in the correctional facilities where there is a little bit of high risk exposure.. Symptoms include fever, chills, night sweats, weight loss and lack of appetite.
El-Mahdy sees a handful of tuberculosis cases each year.
'One thing about this area too is asbestos,' he said. 'So there's a lot of this because of the shipyards that we have here. A lot of the older folks, the retired folks that have exposure to asbestos and TB asbestos are are also closely related as well.'
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