Epidemiologic Triangle Case Study

An epidemiologic triangle has three corners- 1) Agent, that causes the disease; 2) Host, or organism that harbors the diseases; 3) Environment, or external factors that causes or allows for the disease transmission. In the case of TB disease, the agent is the Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and sometimes Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis), M. africanum. M. canetii and M. caprae. The host factors are low immunity, poor nutrition, and co-infection or concurrent disease (e.g. HIV). The environmental factors are crowded conditions, poor ventilation, urbanization, and bad sanitation. In the US, TB patients must be excluded from educational facilities and children’s services (including child care, family day care, kindergartens, after school care) as required under jurisdictional regulations. Patients with active pulmonary TB are managed at home or hospital, and placed under isolation in a negative pressure room with airborne precautions applied, until assessed as being at minimal risk of transmitting the disease. Airborne precautions include the use of particulate filter masks for healthcare workers and surgical masks for patients during transport within the hospital. …show more content…
The seven countries where TB is endemic are India, China, Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, and South Africa. Advances in the TB prevention and care in these countries, which accounts for 64% of the new TB cases, will aid in the global progress of eliminating this disease. For example, India bears the highest burdens of TB and its complications. This is attributed to delay in timely treatment, inaccessibility to healthcare services, lack of awareness regarding TB, treatment, and its preventive measures, high drug resistance TB, economic barriers, lack of funding, air pollution, and inadequate governmental health care system. There are too many risk factors present making it more challenging for the country to overcome the