Tuberculosis Outbreak Compel LA To Request Federal Assistance

Tuberculosis Outbreak Compel LA To Request Federal Assistance

Federal officials were requested to assist by the LA County health officials to control a tuberculosis outbreak that is starting to worsen among homeless people in the downtown area.

A specific strain of the disease was identified among 78 people in the last five years that resulted to the death of 11 people. Sixty of the cases were homeless people living in Skid Row. According to Dr. Jonathan Fielding of the LA Country health department, this was the biggest tuberculosis outbreak among the homeless population in the city in the last ten years.

Dr. Fielding requested health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to visit Los Angeles to aid in the identification of possible victims. A county health department spokesman revealed that federal officials agreed to assist but they have yet to arrive.

Around 5,000 homeless people live on Skid Row, where thousands have lived for a number of years. Around 3,000 beds in shelters were offered by the city but hundreds continue to live on the streets.

A tuberculosis outbreak s normally linked to developing countries. Although foreign travelers were the cause of many of the cases in the county, officials have been struggling with the increasing number of cases among the homeless population of the city.

The disease is not a thing of the past, and officials have the duty to protect its population from it, according to Dr. Fielding.

However, the tuberculosis outbreak is currently limited to a certain area in the city, which means it should not alarm the entire population of the city.

Since homeless people are mainly transients, they do not have suitable chances of getting treated and they may contract it from other people living in shelters. Although there is a general decline in the number of cases of the disease among the entire population of the country, the tuberculosis outbreak is troubling since many homeless people are vulnerable to the disease.

Posted by George Daniels on Sunday February 24 2013, 4:53 AM EST. Ref: Fox News. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0