My mother is still here after a second trip to a sanitarium in 1959. The death toll that year from TB was 11,474, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 1998, with all of our modern medicine, TB still took more than 1,000 victims. According to the NIH with statistics from the CDC there were 16,372 cases of TB reported in 2000 in the United States. Hardest hit areas are Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.
Tuberculosis is spread through the air.
If you're around someone who sneezes or coughs who has TB, you can be infected. As in the case of my family, the disease is spread among people who keep close quarters. The bacteria can lie dormant for years and never turn into active TB, or it can strike and attack, generally the lungs, but can settle in many parts of the body. TB is particularly acute in people who have an immune system problem and the latest strains of the disease are resistant to normal treatments. The resistent form of TB has been found in 43 states and the District of Columbia since 1988.