What caused TB cases to increase the United States?
Cases of TB dropped rapidly in the 1940s and 1950s when the first effective antibiotic treatments for TB were introduced. In 1985, however, the decline ended and the number of active TB cases in the United States began to rise again. Several factors, often interrelated, were behind TB’s resurgence. The HIV/AIDS epidemic- People with HIV are particularly vulnerable to moving from infection with M. tuberculosis to active TB and are also more likely to develop active TB when they are first infected with TB bacteria. People from many nationalities live in the United States- Increased numbers of foreign-born nationals come from places where many cases of TB occur, such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. TB cases among foreign-born nationals now living in the United States account for more than half of the U.S. total. Increased poverty, injection drug use, and homelessness-TB transmission is rampant in crowded shelters and prisons where people weakened by poor nutrition, drug addiction, and
