The tuberculosis infection rate in the United States fell to a record low last year, but the relatively small decline raised fears that the nation was falling behind in its battle to eliminate the disease. A total of 14,511 active TB infections, or 4.9 cases per 100,000 people, were reported to US authorities in 2004, according to data published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That compared with 14,858 cases and a rate of 5.1 cases per 100,000 in 2003.
The rate last year was the lowest since national reporting of the disease began 52 years ago, but the rates of decline in the past two years - 3.3. percent in 2004 and 2.3 percent in 2003 - were the smallest since 1993, the CDC said.
TB rates fell an average 6.6 percent between 1993 and 2002.
"It might suggest that there is a slowing in our progress to eliminate TB in the United States," said Lori Armstrong, an epidemiologist in the CDC's division of tuberculosis elimination.
But US efforts to eliminate TB, spread by coughing and close personal contact and usually cured with a long course of antibiotics, have been stymied in part by higher rates of the disease in other countries, including neighbouring Mexico.