TB Cases Increase In US

Nearly three decades after, tuberculosis is now on the surge in the United States of America.
According to agency reports, TB cases in the US rose from 2020 to 2022.
Cases rose more than 15 percent between the period though the disease is still less prevalent than it was before the pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 8,300 tuberculosis cases last year, compared to nearly 8,900 in 2019.
Doctors who treat tuberculosis patients blame the pandemic for the rise in cases, since reduced access to medical care may have prevented some infections from being identified or delayed diagnoses long enough for a latent infection to progress to active disease.
“The number of tests done for TB dropped across the board in this country because everyone was busy looking for Covid,” said Richard Chaisson, Director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Tuberculosis Research.
“As a result, some newer cases of active tuberculosis could have been avoided”, Chaisson added.
Last week, a Maryland high school reported a new case, and a woman with tuberculosis in Washington has garnered attention since January because she has refused numerous orders to isolate or receive treatment
Other pandemic-related factors may also have hindered the disease’s spread, according to Dr. Priya Shete, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Up to 13 million people in the US have latent infections, meaning the bacteria is inactive and the host is not contagious and does not have symptoms. Around 5 percent to 10 percent of those latent cases, if left untreated, will develop into active disease.
The rise in cases since 2020, though likely a blip in the overall downward trend, is a reminder of how important tuberculosis screenings are, according to Dr. Luke Davis, an associate professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Yale School of Public Health.
“If we could just get everyone who’s at risk screened once, that would be a huge public health victory,” he said.
The US Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of disease experts, on Tuesday released its latest set of screening guidelines for tuberculosis.
Show original message recommendations are the same as the previous 2016 guidance: Groups at increased risk — including those in homeless shelters or correctional facilities and people who were born or previously lived in countries with a high prevalence of TB.

By: Kevin Nengia