Your family

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease and is passed from one person to another by bacteria in airborne droplets. These are produced as bacteria are coughed into the air by a patient just like the common cold.

Tuberculosis is not usually as infectious as a cold but individuals who are in close and frequent contact with a patient, such as family members, may have acquired the disease.

When someone is diagnosed with TB, the local chest clinic staff will assess the risk posed to other people.  If a person is infectious, or if a child has developed TB and the source of the infection is unknown, then close contacts will be invited for screening.  Close contacts are people living in the same household and close family members.  Sometimes other contacts, eg work colleagues and friends may be invited for screening but this is often not necessary.

It is extremely rare for children with TB disease to be infectious but their TB suggests that there is an infectious adult in the vicinity.

Screening of contacts is done to identify people who may have been infected with TB or who have active disease, so that they can be treated.