New York sees a surge in tuberculosis cases amid migrant influx and Covid fatigue

New York sees a surge in tuberculosis cases amid migrant influx and Covid fatigue

LUKE ANDREWS

New York City is recording a 'dramatic' rise in tuberculosis cases, reports suggest — fueling fears the disease could resurge in the US. 

Preliminary data shows 500 cases of tuberculosis (TB) have been diagnosed in the city so far this year — marking a 20 percent increase from this time last year.

Infections are also at their highest level in the city for this time of year in more than a decade, raising concerns the disease could spill into other areas of the country.

Some health officials say the surge is being driven by fatigue following the Covid pandemic — with some people avoiding clinics and treatments — and cuts to funding — with the only TB clinic in Manhattan recently shuttered.

There are also fears the migrant crisis in New York City, which has seen more than 100,000 migrants arriving in the city since spring, could be driving the infection rates because this group is at a heightened risk of infection due to cramped housing conditions.TB was once one of the deadliest infections in the world and a death sentence for half of those it infected.

But with the arrival of vaccines — up to 80 percent effective against severe disease — and other treatments, the fatality rate has now dropped below four percent in developed countries.

Patients catch the disease by breathing in droplets laced with the bacteria, with infections beginning as coughing up phlegm or blood and a persistent cough that doesn't ease within three weeks.

The US stopped routinely giving out the TB vaccine — called Bacillus Calmetter-Guerin — in the 1970s after cases and deaths nosedived in the country. 

But the vaccine may still be offered to patients and healthcare workers who have had close contact with a TB patient.

People exposed to TB patients will also be monitored and offered drugs to curb the infection. 

Doctors treat TB via administering a cocktail of drugs over the course of eight months to eliminate the bacteria.

Previously infected or exposed people, however, face the risk of 'latent' infections, when the bacteria remains dormant in the lungs ready to emerge should the immune system weaken again.

Responding to the rising TB cases in New York, Elizabeth Lovinger from the advocacy group Treatment Action Group, told Politico: 'This is definitely a more dramatic resurgence than we would have probably expected.

'When there are particularly high spikes in TB and other infectious diseases in New York City, that tends to be kind of a bellwether for the rest of the country.'

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