TB is the short way of saying tuberculosis, a serious infectious disease caused by bacteria. It usually attacks the lungs, which is why the main signs are a cough that will not go away, coughing up blood, fever, night sweats, and losing weight. It can also affect bones, the spine, and other parts of the body. TB spreads through the air when a sick person coughs or sneezes, and it can be cured with antibiotics — but the treatment takes six months or more, and if a patient stops early the bacteria can come back stronger and harder to kill. That is why you hear about 'drug-resistant TB'. Something worth knowing: a very large number of people carry the bacteria without being ill at all. Doctors call this latent TB — it sits quietly and may never wake up. So 'having TB' can mean two quite different situations. In everyday English almost nobody says the full word tuberculosis; doctors and ordinary people alike just say TB, with both letters pronounced. Taiwan still has more TB than many people expect, so 肺結核 is a word your family may well know.