MINNEAPOLIS, December 27, 2007—The U.S. has experienced a decrease in the number of tuberculosis infections in recent years, with 13,767 cases reported in 2006, down 3.2 percent from 2005. That's the lowest rate since national reporting began in 1953.

In Minnesota, it's a different story. The rate of tuberculosis infection increased 9 percent between 2005 and 2006.

"We've gone from 199 cases last year, and this year we already have about 225, so it looks like it's probably going to be 235 or 240," Deborah Sodt, program manager for the Minnesota Department of Health TB told City Pages. 

Worse, about 15 percent of the TB diagnosed in Minnesota is drug-resistant. There has even been a local case of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis—the kind that sparked a panic this year when an infected patient flew on a commercial flight after being diagnosed.

Almost all the tuberculosis cases in the metro area are in people who recently emigrated from places where the disease is more common, including sub-Saharan Africa (specifically Somalia and Ethiopia) and southeast and south Asia (mostly Vietnam, India, and Laos). In 2005, for example, Minnesota received 2,233 immigrants from Somalia, where 1 in every 350 people has TB, and 1,303 from Ethiopia, where the infection rate is 1 in 183.

"Nationwide, about 50 percent of the TB in the U.S. is diagnosed in foreign-born people. In Minnesota, it's more like 82 to 85 percent," Dean Tsukayama, M.D., medical director of the Tuberculosis Control Program for Hennepin County, told City Pages. Minnesota has more TB than other places because it takes in more refugees.

This isn't the first time Minnesota has grappled with TB. In 1992, a homeless man spread the disease to at least 45 regulars at a bar he frequented, a case that garnered national attention from the New York Times.

The infection rate in Minnesota is still just 1 in 12,500.

Yet even a few cases can strain resources. Curing tuberculosis requires up to 12 pills a day for up to nine months, with side effects that include nausea, vomiting, and rash. To keep patients from quitting the regimen—which raises the risk of drug-resistant TB—the standard method of treatment is Directly Observed Therapy. "Basically, what it means is that there's someone who is with the client and observes the client swallow their medication," explains Carol Klitz, head nurse of TB control for Hennepin County.

"There's stigma attached to it," Sodt told City Pages. "It becomes an anti-immigrant thing if you start talking about it, and we really don't want that to happen."

City Pages article