World TB Day

March 24 marked World TB Day, commemorating the date in 1882 when the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was announced. World TB Day serves to raise awareness about TB issues and to support worldwide TB control efforts. To coincide with this, the CDC has published a report of data showing that the incidence of tuberculosis in the United States has declined for the 20th consecutive year, dropping below 10,000 cases for the first time since standardized national reporting began in 1953. The incidence rate for 2012 was 3.2 cases per 100,000 population, a decrease of 6.1% from 2011. However, some groups were disproportionately affected by TB. Foreign-born residents had a TB rate that was 11.5 times higher than the rate in US-born residents. Compared with non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic Asians, Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks had rates that were 25, 6.6 and 7.3 times higher, respectively. “Given the significant burden of TB among foreign-born individuals in...