Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Research

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease normally caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This disease can sometimes generate other infections that may not necessarily present any symptoms but the good news is that only a very small percentage of these infections grow up to the disease level (World Health Organization, 2013). These infections are known as latent tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is treatable! However when a person first notices any abnormal symptoms they should seek immediate medical attention as failure to diagnose TB early may complicate the treatment process and sometimes even lead to death (Zumla et al., 2015). Exposure to the TB bacteria can affect all people from all walks of life no matter the age, status or gender and therefore it is crucial that infected people get treated immediately. It is because of this concern that the need for a health message has come up; TB is Curable, lets work together to kick TB out and save lives! This is the slogan that was formulated and it is aimed at educating the public about the severity of the disease, how to protect themselves from infections and sensitize them to seek treatment for the same. Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Research

While formulating a health campaign message for TB several factors need to be considered that will differentiate this campaign from campaigns used for sexually transmitted diseases. Firstly, TB affects people of all ages ranging from children to adults to even the elderly. It is therefore paramount that when creating a campaign message, the language used should be simple and can be easily understood by all people whether educated, illiterate, intellectual, young or old (Anker, Brennan, and Kristensen, 2015). This is in contrast to health messages designed for STDs because these STD campaigns are aimed at people who are mature enough to comprehend complex language and ideas and so the language does not have to be simplified to elementary level. Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Research

In addition, campaign messages for TB should not be accompanied by scary and graphic images that will scare the audience. This is because TB is not anything to be embarrassed about and it is not brought about by ill behavior. Therefore campaign messages should not be designed as warning messages but rather as sensitization messages that will encourage more people to seek treatment (Anker, Brennan, and Kristensen, 2015). This is in contrast with messages aimed at STDs. Sometimes people put scary images so as to scare individuals from engaging in immoral sexual acts for the fear of looking like the people in those pictures.