Stop the Spread of Tuberculosis
California has the highest number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in the country. TB is caused by bacteria that often attack the lungs. The disease poses a serious public health threat because it can be spread from person to person through the air when someone talks or coughs.
An estimated 1.4 million Californians are infected with the bacterium that causes TB, but most don't know it. Their infection is "latent" or sleeping and is not making them or others sick. But if and when it wakes, TB can kill if it goes untreated. If these infected Californians are not located and treated, 7,000 of them may develop active TB in their lifetime. To make matters worse, if those who need treatment stop before it is completed, deadly drug-resistant strains of TB can develop that often don't respond to even the best medicines available today.
While TB rates are dropping statewide, pockets of California are seeing increases. This is cause for alarm because we could see another resurgence of TB like we experienced in the late 1980s. Increases in funding helped bring the number of cases under control until 2001, when funding was cut.
More than 100 years ago, we started our fight against TB, then the number one cause of death. The American Lung Association blazed a new trail by promoting public policies to control the disease and today we are continuing the fight by calling for increased state funding to avert another resurgence of TB.
