4.3.3. Spread of the Disease
TB patients can release tiny particles containing Mycobacterium tuberculosis into the air by coughing, sneezing, laughing, or singing. These particles are called air droplet nuclei. They are invisible to the naked eye. Droplet nuclei can remain airborne in room air for many hours, until they are removed by natural or mechanical ventilation. For TB to spread, there must be a person with TB disease who produces the TB bacilli, and another person who inhales the droplet nuclei containing the bacilli. Although TB is not usually spread by brief contact, anyone who is in close proximity with an infectious person is at risk of getting infected.
Nurse (N1) indicated that: “It is sad the way TB is spreading in our communities, we have a record of patients who come from one family or who are related. They decide to infect others or share their sputum just for them to get a TB grant. When they realize that they are recovering, they default for the social grant to continue. Most of those patients, when they come back to the hospitals, they will be MDR or XDR; they do not survive. Some MDR or XDR TB patients infect one another in the TB ward.”
Nurse (N6) had this to say: “Patients also spread disease when they use public transport. They go to church and when they are in shopping complex. Each time I hear of TB outbreak in the communities I get stressed because I see large number of people who are still going to die of TB. We feel vulnerable because in the whole community we are the first people in the line of danger.”
According to the findings of the present study, TB patients spread TB in the wards and outside. The nurses indicated that they feel vulnerable, since they are at great risk of contracting TB. The nurses indicated that patients continue to spread infection, even when they are outside TB wards and that contributes to an outbreak of TB in rural areas. The findings of this study concur with those of the study done by Arjun [25], which concluded that TB patients are a risk to community members because when they go to shopping centers and places where there are large numbers of people, such as social gatherings and church services they become a danger to the people.