Tuberculosis Sees Biggest Increase In NYC Since 1992

NEW YORK CITY, NY — The city had its largest increase of people diagnosed with tuberculosis last year since 1992, with Sunset Park, Flushing and neighborhoods in West Queens having the highest rates of the disease, the Health Department said.

There was a 10 percent jump in the number of TB cases from 2016 to 2017, from 557 patients to 613 last year, according to a report by the Department of Health released Monday.

"Tuberculosis is a deadly, yet curable disease," Dr. Mary Bassett, commissioner of the city's Health Department, said in a statement.

"The Health Department is the leading provider of tuberculosis care in New York City and we are concerned about these new data that show TB rates have increased among New Yorkers."

Sunset Park had the highest rate of tuberculosis in the city last year, with 31 cases translating as 23.2 per 100,000 people, according to the study.

West Queens, which includes Corona, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Maspeth and Woodside, had the second-highest rate in the city with 19.2 per 100,000, the Health Department said. Those neighborhoods had 92 cases last year.

TB is an infectious bacterial disease that mainly affects people's lungs but could also impact a patient's kidneys, spine or brain, according to the Mayo Clinic.

It's transmitted in the air through coughs and sneezes, but the Health Department said that brief contact with patients on subways or buses usually isn't enough to contract the disease.

The city had a boom in cases from the '80s to the '90s before it peaked in 1992. It has been on the decline since, the Health Department said.

The study found that people born outside the United States were disproportionately affected by TB, making up 83 percent of the cases around the city. Immigrants from China, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India and Mexico were more likely to contract the disease.

The city also had an increase in a strain of the disease that's resistant to two of the most important antibiotics used to treat it, the Health Department said.

The Department of Health maintains four tuberculosis clinics around the city, which provide free testing and treatment, and they were responsible for the care of 54 percent of the patients last year, according to the city.

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