Tuberculosis (TB), also known as primary tuberculosis infection, is a bacterial disease that is transmitted from infected people to healthy people through the air. This can happen because the tuberculosis bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) can be in the air or on surfaces such as dust, furniture, towels, etc. In most cases, TB infection occurs from a person suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, but there are cases of infection from tuberculosis of other organs. When a healthy person inhales microscopic droplets of liquid containing bacteria, they can become infected with tuberculosis. If the body is unable to protect itself from tuberculosis bacteria, then these bacteria can multiply and lead to the development of the disease.
Symptoms of a primary TB infection can manifest in a variety of ways and include cough, fever, fatigue, weight loss, and other symptoms. Some of these symptoms may be mild and there may be a long period of time before a doctor can diagnose the condition. Symptoms of primary tuberculosis infection often do not allow an accurate diagnosis and suspicion of the presence of the disease in a patient, so doctors are often faced with the problem of incorrect treatment of tuberculosis. As a result, the presence of asymptomatic forms of the disease leads to high prevalence rates in the population. Thus, in Russia, the prevalence among children alone is 34–72 per 1 million child population and remains unchanged. At the same time, the proportion of patients with common forms (with damage to 2 organs or more) averages 57% among pediatric patients. The annual loss of labor reserves for the economically active group of the population alone is estimated at 9.1 million days (or 32% per year). 84% of those newly diagnosed with tuberculosis become ill with tuberculosis, i.e., there is a fairly significant incidence rate among vaccinated people. Tuberculosis claims over 2 million lives every year. In the Russian Federation, more than half of the identified patients with tuberculosis are patients with combination