14 Mar 2024 • More than 80% of people in Asia and Africa who have culture-confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) exhibited no persistent cough, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

An astonishing 82.8% of those with pulmonary TB exhibited no persistent cough, & 62.5% showed no cough at all. 27.7% of participants with TB displayed no symptoms at all. Additionally, a quarter of those without any cough had positive sputum smears.

The lack of a persistent cough is significant because it's one of the primary symptoms that triggers the diagnostic process for TB in HIV-negative patients. That means patients not reporting a persistent cough could face delays in diagnosis and treatment of a disease that killed 1.3 million people in 2022.

"Subclinical tuberculosis could therefore be a major source of transmission globally, and delayed or missed diagnoses associated with it could have contributed to the less than anticipated effect of tuberculosis control efforts on global tuberculosis incidence over the past decades," the study authors wrote.

Source: The Lancet | Read full story"