Copyright 2003 P.G. Publishing Co.  
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)

March 25, 2003 Tuesday ONE STAR EDITION

SECTION: HEALTH, Pg.X-2
LENGTH: 254 words

BODY:
Keeping the world safe from TB

Yesterday was World TB Day, an annual awareness campaign for a disease that once was the leading cause of death in America. Although powerful antibiotics had nearly eliminated the bacterial disease in this country by the 1960s, rates began to climb in the mid 1980s because of complacency and the spread of immuno-suppressive illnesses such as AIDS.

With tuberculosis again declining, there were 15,078 cases reported in the United States last year, 25 in Allegheny County. The county's rate, 2 per 100,000 people, is below the national 5.2 per 100,000.

The American Respiratory Alliance of Western Pennsylvania, formerly the Tuberculosis League of Pittsburgh, has worked since 1904 to eradicate the disease that is spread through the air. Nicknamed the "white plague" because of the pallor of its victims, TB was then killing 180 in every 100,000 people here. The alliance helped set up special hospitals and open-air schools and today it provides education and training workshops. It also assists with the TB clinic at the Allegheny County Health Department office in Lawrenceville. The alliance helps support the clinic with a $29,000 grant from the Otis H. Childs Trust administered by PNC Advisors.

The county saw only one multidrug-resistant case of TB last year, which is a bigger problem in larger cities, said Guillermo Cole, Health Department spokesman. Patients are usually treated with antibiotics for six months to a year because the bacteria dies slowly.