From the Desk of Linda Civitello-Joy, CEO
Breathe California
Golden Gate Public Health Partnership

As Breathe California celebrates the 100th Anniversary of our founding as the SF Society for the Study and Prevention of TB, I am disheartened that we still need to have a World TB Day to bring attention to this deadly disease, which is on the rise in the Bay Area.

TB remains a major cause of death worldwide, accounting for 1.6 million deaths per year. San Francisco has the highest rate of TB in the USA, and the development of strains resistant to currently available treatments is of great concern.

Records in my office, dating from 1908, show that TB was the #1 cause of death in San Francisco at the time. One in seven, mainly those in the prime of their life, were killed by this disease.

From 1908 to 1930, the TB rates dropped 60%. This impressive reduction occurred due to local investment in public health. The TB Society and the City of San Francisco partnered successfully to bring the rates down – without antibiotics – by setting up clinics, employing visiting nurses, offering educational programs and setting up open-air schools.

Improved treatments and diagnostic tools would allow us to do even a better job today, but because overall TB rates in the USA are declining, funding for local TB prevention and treatment continues to be cut. The San Francisco TB Control Department has only half the staff it did in the 1990's and this year proposed California state budget cuts further threaten local TB control.

This morning I attended a press conference at SF International Airport along with representatives from county TB control programs and advocacy organizations. The message was loud and clear: TB is an infectious disease that knows no borders. Local TB control programs in areas where the rates are rising should be given the resources needed to effectively control TB, or we may again face a major epidemic.

We must urge our state and federal legislators to pay attention to the needs of the local TB control programs. With current budget concerns at all levels of government, the costs may seem beyond reach, but if we fail to prevent a drug resistant TB epidemic more money and more lives will be lost!

Join me in supporting adequate funding for TB prevention and control at all levels – local to international. For more information please visit the California Tuberculosis Controllers Association: http://www.ctca.org.

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