Can you have natural immunity to turberculosis?

[Bartimaeus]

DS (2 months) had his first vaccinations today. Dr programmed the next ones in 1 month. She said the BCG is optional but highly recommended because we live in an "at risk" area.

That reminded me that I never had the TB job at school because I tested positive to immunity. Since then we did once check with a Dr if I should have the jab anyway but he said if I showed up as positive I was ok and I was immune "because I must have already caught it and built up immunity".

We have no idea if and when I had TB...could it be a natural immunity? (googling hasn't helped!)

I'm wondering if I should get tested again, but at my school they were adament that I was immune and didn't need the jab...

well I am not medically qualified at all, but I always understood that natural immunity could be due to having been exposed to TB, but being fortunate enough not to have caught it. No harm in asking GP about being tested again,but imagine immunity would be for life

yes some people are naturally immune.

dh is, I'm not a medic btw. Friend at school was she had to go for an xray to check she didn't already have it (she didn't)

you can be exposed to a virus and your immune system can see it off without you developing symptons thus leaving you immune. I am too old to have had many of the vaccs but a test showed I was immune to diptheria and TB despite never having had them or vaccinations.

Yes you will have been exposed in the past without developing the illness.

Actually TB is caused by a bacterium, not a virus.

i know, I was going to type virus and bacteria but was on the phone cooking dinner and was hoping no-one would spot it

Is their something about getting immunity through drinking unpasteurised milk?

I wouldn't have thought so! Dh is immune as he was conceived whilst his mum was still being treated for TB!

No idea about my friend at school though - possibly again passed on through her Mum - who knows.

I have never had to have a BCG because I always reacted strongly to the six needles - but my mother was diagnosed with TB when I was about one (she believes she caught it off the mother in the next bed in the maternity hospital who was coughing up blood for the two weeks she was in and they would not allow her to move beds ). She was in the sanitorium for a year but thankfully recovered.

I was X-rayed and tested every year during childhood but never developed any symptoms myself. Havent passed immunity onto any of my children though.

Interesting thank you!
I suppose I must have been exposed at some point. Scary thought!

maybe Bartimaeus yes, and scary!

but I have always understood that there will be some small percentage of any population who for whatever reason will not succumb to a disease even without prior exposure and if the disease strikes they will survive and then increase - hence why many people from Africa have inherited sickle cell anaemia because it offers protection against malaria but is not "immunity" as such. I dont know enough about the TB bacillus though to know what if anything might make conditions unfavourable for it to multiply and take hold.

I tested positive at school too (a million years ago), as did one of my friends. My understanding is that yes, you can have natural immunity - I doubt I was exposed as a child, but who knows!
I certainly was never ill with it!

Depends where you grew up! TB rates in parts of London higher than most of Africa ( BCG at birth here). Quite possibly you were exposed if you live here.

Yes I also tested positive and did not have to have the shot. Some years ago they gave it at a later age, think I was about 12. When we were kids we drank un pastuerised milk, it was milk delivered to our home by a lady, hundreds of families from our town got from her. This is why we were immuned as there was small traces of TB in the milk that we drank for years.. Did us no harm ... Imagine this happening today ..!!!

A lot of children who grow up on dairy farms are immune from contact with the bovine form of TB. My mum was immune (when they did the skin prick test it reacted so she didnt have to have the jab)

My daughter has had the jab, I wonder would she have been immuned to it through me .....

MCDL- don't think so as neither my sister or I were immune although our mum was.

Also, if that was the case, kids wouldnt get , say, chicken pox, if their parents had had it