Why is it important to take medication for TB every day for the whole treatment period?
Even if a person feels better after taking TB drugs for a short time, they can remain infected if they stop taking the drugs before all the germs have been killed. If they stop taking the medicines too early, some of the TB germs in their lungs will survive the attack by the TB drugs and become resistant to anti-TB drug treatment. Even though a person might start to feel well again, stopping the drugs too early will make the TB come back and the person will feel sick again. This time, the TB will be much harder to treat. Even worse, the people they infect will have the same drug-resistant strain. Treatment of drug-resistant TB is much longer, much more expensive, and much more toxic to the patient s body than treatment of non-drug-resistant TB disease.
