Most of the "immigrants" that are being offered free services by the Buck County Health clinics and Family Service Association are Mexican and Guatemalans...Now we get this news story that TB is on the rise.

Please fellow ALIPAC'ers can you take the time to add your comments at the articles source...this county needs to wake up to what's going on....we need your help! Thank you in advance.


The Intelligencer
Local News | Local Sports


TB cases falling but not in Bucks

By JO CIAVAGLIA
Bucks County Courier Times

Long thought to be a distant memory in the U.S., tuburculosis is on a slight upswing in Bucks and Montgomery counties despite steady downward trends statewide and nationally.

Even Philadelphia, where historically roughly half of Pennsylvanian cases occurred, has seen declines over the last six years while locally the numbers — while small — have remained unchanged or increased slightly.

The falling state TB cases also mean that Bucks and Montgomery counties account for a higher percentage of overall cases.

On Tuesday, Bensalem School District announced that a second unidentified high school student is being treated for the contagious and potentially fatal disease. The first one was diagnosed in March. School officials say the cases are not connected.

So far this year, six confirmed active TB cases and a seventh suspected one have been reported in Bucks, according to the county health department. Since 1999, Bucks has averaged about 14 cases a year.

Last year in the U.S., roughly four cases were reported for every 100,000 residents (or a total of 13,293 cases), the lowest rate ever recorded, according to the CDC.

Tuberculosis, also called TB, is caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, which usually attacks the lung, but also can surface in the kidney, spine and brain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

TB is spread through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes and people nearby inhale the bacteria.

In developed nations, TB is rare. But elsewhere the disease remains prevalent. Nearly one-third of the world population is infected, though active TB disease develops in only a fraction of the people, the CDC said.

Arizona prosecutors recently charged a Russian man with exposing the public to the disease since he has contracted a drug resistant form. Currently there is no evidence the man, who has dual Russian-U.S. citizenship, exposed anyone before he was quarantined in 2006. He has since returned to Russia.

An Atlanta man last year triggered an international health scare after flying to and from Europe for his wedding and honeymoon with a difficult-to-treat form of TB. He was forcibly treated on his return to the U.S. and has been released.

HARD TO SPREAD

Last year, 276 TB cases were reported to the Pennsylvania Department of Health including 15 in Bucks County and 23 in Montgomery County. In 2000, 383 Pennsylvania residents tested positive for TB, including 11 in Bucks and 15 in Montgomery.

To put the numbers into a broader perspective, as a portion of overall TB cases, Bucks and Montgomery counties have increased from 3 percent and 4 percent, respectively, to 6 percent and 8 percent, according to state health statistics.

Last year, more than 1,000 Bucks County residents received TB treatment at county health clinics last year, a number that has remained consistent in recent years, said Barbara Schellhorn, director of personal health.

Most TB cases are latent, where TB bacteria are alive, but inactive meaning the person is not contagious. Even if a person has the active disease, it's not spread as easily as the common cold, health experts said.

“It's not an easy thing to get,â€