What caused TB to return?
Cases of TB dropped rapidly in the 1940s and 1950s when the first effective antibiotic therapies 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 forces, often interrelated, were behind TB’s resurgence: • The HIV/AIDS epidemic. People with HIV are particularly vulnerable to turn infection with M. tuberculosis into active TB and are also more sensitive to developing active TB when they are first infected with the TB germ. • Increased numbers of foreign born nationals from countries where many cases of TB occur, such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. TB cases among those persons now living in the US account for 43 percent of the national 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 alcoholism are exposed to M. tuberculosis. • Failure of patients to take
