NYC TB Rates Rise For First Time in Decade

Next Monday (March 24) is World Tuberculosis Day -- a day designed to build public awareness of the dangerous disease.

In advance of that day, the New York City Health Department released a summary of all recorded tuberculosis (TB) cases in NYC for the year 2013. Alarmingly, the report shows a rise in the number infections for the first time in over a decade.

According to the report, diagnosed cases of TB in the New York City region have actually increased from 651 cases in 2012 to 656 cases in 2013. While five additional cases may not seem like much, the number of TB cases in NYC has been steadily dropping since 2003. TB cases on a whole in the city have dropped rapidly and consistently since 1993, exempting a minor rise in 2003, and now again in 2013.

However, these numbers still leave the NYC rate of infection unchanged at 8 infections per every 100,000 citizens, an infection rate that is nearly three times the national rate of 3 infections per 100,000 citizens.

Because TB is an infection borne of bacteria and not a virus, the U.S. and the New York Department of Health do not employ vaccination and immunization strategies like many European countries have attempted. As TB vaccination strategies have proven ineffective and not cost-efficient enough for U.S. standards, reactionary anti-biotic treatments are used instead, employing strategies that will catch the bacteria infection in its earliest stages -- when it is extremely vulnerable to traditional anti-biotic treatment.

For the past two decades, this strategy appeared to be working. NYC saw a reported 3,811 infections of TB in 1993, but now only sees about 650 a year.

However, antibiotic resistant TB is on the rise in the world, with the World Health Organization currently working to maximize treatment speeds in undeveloped countries in an attempt to delay what seems like an inevitable and nearly untreatable epidemic.

In the U.S., the prevalence of other drug-resistant bacteria is on the rise, raising the concerns of health officials.

Still, according to the NYC health department, in an effort to bring infection rates down and as precautionary measure against drug-resistant TB infections, they will begin offering a new 12-week-long treatment regimen for TB infection. This treatment will be far faster than what New York State has previously seen, with traditional TB treatments taking a full nine months.

This year, the Health Department will also be offering TB infection blood tests in the homes of individuals exposed to TB, to help prevent further spread of the dangerous bacteria.

The NYC Health Department report on tuberculosis was published on March 20, accompanied by an official press release detailing the major findings of the report.