Tuberculosis skin test weakly positive

Many people go to the hospital for examination because they often cough and cough up phlegm and are afraid that they may have tuberculosis. However, when doing the tuberculosis skin test, the result is weakly positive. Weakly positive means that you feel infected with tuberculosis, but it is just an infection, not a confirmed diagnosis. At this time, if you take some medicines in time, you can avoid tuberculosis. The following is a detailed introduction to the meaning of weakly positive tuberculosis skin test.

Tuberculosis is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis that can invade many organs, with pulmonary tuberculosis infection being the most common. People who excrete bacteria are an important source of infection. A person does not necessarily develop tuberculosis after being infected with tuberculosis bacteria. Clinical illness may only occur when the body's resistance is reduced or cell-mediated allergic reactions increase. If diagnosed promptly and treated appropriately, most patients can recover clinically.

To confirm tuberculosis, a skin test is usually required. The skin test for tuberculosis is generally done as a PPD test. A moderate to weak positive result means infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, but it does not necessarily mean that the person has pulmonary tuberculosis. Further examination is needed to confirm the tuberculin test. It is an intradermal test to see whether the body is infected with tuberculosis and whether the BCG vaccination has been successful. If the result is strongly positive, the possibility of tuberculosis activity should be considered; if the result is negative, BCG vaccination is needed.

The author would also like to remind you that tuberculosis is contagious and patients need to pay attention to care. The routes of infection are:

1. Respiratory tract: This is the main route of transmission. Tuberculosis patients who excrete bacteria expel droplets containing tuberculosis bacteria from their respiratory tracts, which are also called droplets. These droplets are suspended in the air and can be inhaled by close contacts around them. Especially droplet nuclei with a particle diameter of less than 4 microns are more likely to be inhaled and cause alveolar infection. The number of droplet nuclei discharged by germ-carrying people during normal breathing is relatively small, but a large number of germ-carrying droplets can be discharged when coughing, sneezing or talking loudly. One cough can discharge 3,500 droplets, and one sneeze can discharge up to 1 million droplets. Therefore, coughing and sneezing are important ways of spreading the virus through the air. The droplets continue to spread outward, and the farther away from the source of infection, the fewer droplets there are, and the smaller the chance of inhaling droplets containing tuberculosis bacteria. If the distance is more than 2 meters, the chance of being infected is much less.

2. Digestive tract: When food infected with tuberculosis is ingested, most of the tuberculosis bacteria are killed by gastric acid and other digestive tract substances or excreted with feces. However, if tuberculosis bacteria are ingested in large quantities or repeatedly, they can enter the lymph follicles of the intestinal wall through the digestive tract to form lesions.

3. Skin infection: Under normal circumstances, the skin has the ability to resist foreign bacteria, but when the skin is damaged, tuberculosis bacteria can invade through the skin and form infection lesions.

4. Placental infection . When the mother has active tuberculosis, the fetus can be infected with tuberculosis bacteria through the placenta in the uterus. But this situation is very rare.

The above is an introduction to weakly positive tuberculosis skin test and whether it is contagious. I hope it can help you.