OUR OPINION: Praise for effective public-health response
November 15, 2012 at 3:30 pm in Grand Forks Herald
The Grand Forks Public Health Department, North Dakota Department of Health, Grand Forks School District and others are handling a tuberculosis outbreak with science-based effectiveness and dispatch.
Kudos to them for their measured and professional response. Continue Reading
Where did the TB originate?
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TB dates from at least 17,000 years ago.
In 2010, North Dakota had 574 reported cases of latent TB (no symptoms, not contagious), and 12 cases of active TB disease. It’s something that’s already present in the population of North Dakota, and has been since the days of the settlers.
Regardless of whether this particular case was “brought in,” TB was here before that.
One-third of the population worldwide has TB, and most of them have the latent form. Unless tested, you wouldn’t know if you had the latent form.
You may be thinking of pertussis.
A great source for information on TB is the Centers for Disease Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/tb/. And North Dakota’s numbers are available on its Dept. of Health website. Some of them are here: http://www.ndhealth.gov/Disease/NewsLetters/EpiArchives/QTR1-11.pdf
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Oh, and here’s the article that describes the origins you asked about:
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/249248/publisher_ID/40/
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