Talk:Tuberculosis

There is currently no pronunciation for the name "tuberculosis" in this article. There is reason to believe there are variations in British English. I have heard it pronounced tjuːˈbɜːrkjuːˌloʊsɪs (tew-BER-kew-loh-sis) in Received Pronunciation (the standard British accent) by the narrator of the 1984 BBC schools series Badger Girl when describing badgers being blamed for bovine TB. However, I have have also heard it pronounced in real life with the primary stress on either the first or penultimate syllable e.g. ˌtjuːbərkjuːˈloʊsɪs (tew-bər-kew-LOH-sis) but the first and third syllables are pronounced with yods anyway. This could explain why the name of the disease is often shortened to "TB" although I think it is more like because the abbreviation is shorter. Tk420 (talk) 21:42, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I noticed the section on TB vaccines is extremely tiny. There’s also a separate Tuberculosis vaccines article, however this is also extremely tiny. Perhaps that article’s content should be merged back into the full Tuberculosis article? Unless it’s expanded significantly, I’m not sure it needs to be a separate article, and merging it would make things easier for those trying to learn about the topic.

(I don’t normally edit in this topic space so my apologies if it’s just standard practice to separate out vaccine articles)

There’s also a separate article on the BCG vaccine specifically though, and that one is much more detailed than the general vaccine article, so I’m not sure what the best policy is regarding that. If it’s decided that should be kept separate then perhaps that should be merged with the general TB vaccines article (since it seems it might mention other TB vaccines anyway) and a small summary of the most relevant data included on this (the main TB) page?

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Also, I wanted to suggest a little more detail be added (either to the vaccines section in this article or the separate Tuberculosis vaccines article, if that is kept separate). I was curious and wanted to look up what countries use TB vaccines, and when the first TB vaccines were invented, and found neither piece of info in either this article or the separate vaccines article—although there is a country list and more historical info in the BCG article. If that info applies to the general topic of TB vaccines perhaps it could be added here?

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tl;dr it just seems weird that there’s a TB article, a TB vaccines stub that doesn’t really add much more detail than what’s already in the TB article, and a separate article on BCG vaccines which seems to also contain the general info one would expect to find in the general TB vaccines article? I’m not sure all three are truly necessary.

But again, this is not my area of expertise so I wanted to just propose it as a suggestion (to the folks who do focus on this article) which might make the content more accessible for readers. Catfrost (talk) 01:04, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

@Catfrost I agree that the vaccine article is pretty useless, and probably redundant. There is a problem with many medical articles, they need constant updating as research develops or demographics change, but very few editors have time or inclination. The best thing to do is too give the article header a tag such as update, stub or medcn etc if you can't update / expand it yourself. Bob (talk) 15:34, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

The following sentences is repeated twice in the article. This is redundant. Also, two different citations are used despite the numbers being the same.

"As of 2023, eight countries accounted for more than two thirds of global TB cases: India (26%), Indonesia (10%), China (6.8%), the Philippines (6.8%), Pakistan (6.3%), Nigeria (4.6%), Bangladesh (3.5%) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (3.1%)[81]" ~2025-34212-65 (talk) 19:27, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

@~2025-34212-65 Thank you, removed one instance. Bob (talk) 20:01, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I noticed that the "New onset" subsection of the "Management" section of the article is missing some fairly significant updates to the treatment guidelines for drug-susceptible pulmonary TB, which include the recommendation of a 4-month regimen in eligible cases (no known or suspected resistance to rifampin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, or fluoroquinolones). This is far from my area of expertise, so I am uncertain of if this section should be rewritten entirely, or recent guideline changes should simply be appended. Ajswz (talk) 03:50, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@Ajswz thanks for pointing this 2022 recommendation out. It only seems to apply in the US, and it has not worked well in practice https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12233099. But you've highlighted an issue with this paragraph, that it perhaps needs to be broadened to include Moxifloxacin as a possible first-line treatment. Or alternatively remove the list of drugs and just say "multiple".

Guidelines such as WP:MEDMOS and WP:NOTATEXTBOOK apply here. I'll take a look at it over the next few days. Bob (talk) 07:55, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

The goal of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Vital Signs 2026 campaign is to bring all 101 top-importance articles—including this one—up to at least B-class quality. Many of these articles are widely read but overdue for review, so even small improvements can have a big impact.

If you watch or edit this article, your help would be very welcome. You can:

1. Add yourself as a participant
2. Note the state of the article in the Progress table (is the current class still correct?)
3. Update the article based on recent clinical guidelines and review papers
4. Help address gaps, improve clarity for a broad audience, or improve image selection

To reach B class, articles should have: suitable referencing, reasonable coverage, a clear structure, good prose, helpful illustrations, and be understandable to a broad audience. Contributions of any size are appreciated. Femke (talk) 16:00, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Hello, i believe we should delete the photo of the boys getting tested for tuberclosis in 1934 as i believe it is innapropriate Averyshelley12 (talk) 16:12, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

I think that Airborne Infection Control in Tuberculosis should be merged into the Prevention section of this article after being cleaned up. The subjects overlap and I believe the content could be placed here without redundancy. BlaqWiedow (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

I support the proposal to merge Airborne Infection Control in Tuberculosis into the Prevention section after cleanup. The overlap in subject matter makes consolidation logical, and placing the content under Prevention would improve cohesion while avoiding redundancy. Staracademic21 (talk) 02:16, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Sorry if it was bad timing, but I renamed Airborne Infection Control in Tuberculosis to Airborne infection control in tuberculosis — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 08:54, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. Thanks for renaming it. If no one objects in a couple of days I will complete the merge. BlaqWiedow (talk) 16:14, 12 March 2026 (UTC)