To focus attention on the disease, the World Health Organization is sponsoring World TB Day on Saturday. TB is an infectious disease caused by the tubercle bacillus. The disease, characterized by the formation of tubercles in various tissues of the body, especially the lungs, can lie dormant for years in an infected person. There are an estimated 10 to 15 million people in the U.S. with latent TB infection and about 10 percent of them will develop the disease during their lifetimes, Fluck said. The effort also would benefit people in industrialized nations.
Outbreaks of infection acquired during air travel are a growing hazard.
It forecast 10.2 million new cases a year by 2005 if nothing is done to stop the disease. Fluck said the number of TB cases in the U.S. dropped to such low levels in the 1970s that Congress eliminated funding aimed at preventing the disease. In the 1980s, TB made a strong comeback, aggravated by the rise in HIV infections and increased drug resistance in patients. In Lancaster County, about 10 cases of TB are reported every year and most of those involve people born in other countries, he said. The disease is treatable, Fluck said.