Tuberculosis Protection Course Overview
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a significant occupational health concern for healthcare workers who face substantially higher infection risk compared to the general population. Healthcare personnel working in hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities, correctional healthcare, homeless shelters, and laboratories encounter TB patients during diagnosis, treatment, and isolation procedures. Despite significant declines in TB incidence in the United States, healthcare workers continue to experience occupational transmission, particularly in settings with delayed TB diagnosis, inadequate infection control measures, or exposure to multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB). The risk is especially high in emergency departments where TB diagnosis may not be immediately apparent and in pulmonary procedure areas where aerosol-generating procedures increase transmission potential.
This course educates healthcare personnel about the risks, transmission, testing, treatment, and prevention of tuberculosis to increase safety in hospitals and other medical facilities. Employees learn CDC-recommended infection control practices including administrative controls, environmental controls, and personal protective equipment requirements, along with proper procedures for TB screening, diagnosis, isolation, and treatment monitoring.
Tuberculosis Protection Course Content
Lesson 1: Introduction and Objectives
Scope of tuberculosis in healthcare settings, occupational transmission risk for healthcare workers, CDC infection control guidelines, historical context of TB resurgence in healthcare facilities, course objectives, and importance of comprehensive TB control programs
Lesson 2: Definition, Symptoms and Types
Definition of tuberculosis, primary infection site in lungs, extrapulmonary TB, latent TB infection (LTBI) vs. active TB disease, signs and symptoms of active TB, high-risk populations
Lesson 3: Transmission
Airborne transmission through droplet nuclei, generation during coughing, sneezing, speaking, or singing, ability of droplet nuclei to remain suspended in air for hours, inhalation and deposition in alveoli, factors affecting transmission risk, procedures that increase transmission risk
Lesson 4: Testing and Diagnosis
Tuberculin skin test procedure, interpretation of induration measurements, interferon-gamma release assays, advantages of IGRAs over TST, chest X-ray for evaluation of active disease, sputum smear microscopy for acid-fast bacilli (AFB), sputum culture as gold standard for diagnosis, nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) for rapid diagnosis, drug susceptibility testing for treatment planning
Lesson 5: Treatment
Treatment of latent TB infection (LTBI) to prevent progression, treatment of active TB disease, directly observed therapy (DOT) to ensure adherence, importance of completing full treatment course, management of drug-resistant TB, monitoring for adverse drug effects, contact investigation procedures
Lesson 6: Prevention
Hierarchy of TB infection control measures, administrative controls, environmental controls, respiratory protection, source control, employee TB screening programs, contact investigation protocols


