What caused tuberculosis to return?
Cases of tuberculosis dropped rapidly in the 1940s and 1950s when the first effective antibiotic therapies for tuberculosis were introduced. In 1985, however, the decline ended and the number of active tuberculosis cases in the United States began to rise again. Several forces, often interrelated, were behind tuberculosis’s resurgence: • The HIV/AIDS epidemic. People with HIV are particularly vulnerable to turn infection with M. tuberculosis into active tuberculosis and are also more sensitive to developing active tuberculosis when they are first infected with the tuberculosis germ. • Increased numbers of foreign-born nationals from countries where many cases of tuberculosis occur, such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. tuberculosis cases among those persons now living in the US account for nearly half of the national total. • Increased poverty, injection drug use, and homelessness. tuberculosis transmission is rampant in crowded shelters and prisons where people weakened by poor nut
