Tuberculosis Cases Fewest On Record Rise Reversed, Though 20 States Had No Reduction Or An Increase
The number of new tuberculosis cases in the United States dropped last year to the lowest level since record-keeping began in the 1950s, the federal government announced Monday.
It was the fourth straight year of decline, suggesting the nation is recovering from a rise in TB from the mid-‘80s to 1992, officials said.
“We’re on the right track toward the elimination of tuberculosis in this country,” said Dr. Ken Castro of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We now have the rare opportunity to eliminate tuberculosis in the United States.”
However, he and others at a New York news conference cautioned against relaxing the fight against the disease, saying that’s what made TB surge in the 1980s after a long decline.
Castro noted that 20 states and the District of Columbia showed no reduction or even had increases from 1995 to 1996, and that sporadic outbreaks of drug-resistant TB continue to be reported.
Last year’s nationwide count of new TB cases was 21,327, down nearly 7 percent from 1995. That’s the fewest cases recorded by CDC since it started national surveillance in 1953. Over the same period, the total population has almost doubled.
Officials credited programs that seek out people with infectious tuberculosis, diagnose them and make sure the patients take their full course of therapy. To be cured, a TB patient must take drugs for six months or longer, even after symptoms are gone.
The TB case total in 1996 was about where it would have been a decade earlier if the TB resurgence hadn’t interrupted years of decline, Castro said.
From 1985 to 1992, TB cases rose almost 20 percent, said Dr. Charles Felton, speaking on behalf of the American Lung Association. The reason is that federal funding aimed specifically at TB control had been replaced with general public health block grants to states, which led many states to cut back their anti-TB efforts, Felton said.
Congress restored much of the anti-TB money by 1992, he said.
“If we do not continue to support TB control efforts, we will face an inevitable rise in tuberculosis cases once again,” Felton said.
Among the areas reporting TB increases or no change in 1996 were the District of Columbia, up 36 percent, and Oregon, up 22 percent.
He said it would take further study to determine why they and 19 other states bucked the nationwide trend. Many are probably still rebuilding their anti-TB programs, he said. And some may simply be getting better at detecting the disease, he said.
Castro also noted that an increasing proportion of this nation’s cases is being found in people born outside the country. They accounted for 37 percent of cases in 1996, up from 22 percent a decade before, and two-thirds of them were born in Mexico, the Philippines or Vietnam, he said.
Part of that trend is due to an influx of immigrants, he said. Many people diagnosed with TB probably entered the country with harmless, latent infections of TB germs, Castro said. These infections can turn active after years of dormancy. xxxx STATE BY STATE Tuberculosis cases for the region’s states including number of new cases in 1996, the percentage change compared to 1995, the rate per 100,000 population and the national ranking for that rate. Idaho, 11 cases, down 21.43 percent; 0.9 per 100,000, 50th. Montana, 19 cases, down 9.52 percent; 2.2 per 100,000, 43rd. Washington, 285 cases, up 2.52 percent; 5.2 per 100,000, 27th.