NCHHSTP Newsroom: New CDC TB Data – Drug-Resistance and 2013 Surveillance

NCHHSTP Newsroom: New CDC TB Data – Drug-Resistance and 2013 Surveillance

NCHHSTP Newsroom: New CDC TB Data – Drug-Resistance and 2013 Surveillance

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent this bulletin at 03/20/2014 01:25 PM EDT

NCHHSTP Newsroom from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In advance of World TB Day (observed March 24), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today released two new studies:

• One study looks at the serious human and economic toll of drug-resistant TB in the United States. Treatments are very expensive (with average costs of approximately half a million dollars for the most resistant cases), disrupt lives, and have potentially life-threatening side effects.
• The second summarizes new national TB surveillance data for 2013.

Taken together, the two studies show that TB remains a serious public health concern; and although drug-resistant TB is relatively rare in the United States, its treatment imposes a terrible price.

For more information, please see quotes from Dr. Jonathan Mermin, Director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention and Dr. Philip LoBue, Acting Director, Division of Tuberculosis Elimination. You can also find additional media resources on these studies including key graphics on the NCHHSTP online newsroom.