For a lot of people, I think TB is one of those abstract diseases, something that people-we-don't-know get in places-we-don't-go.  Far away people, far away places.  But it kills 1.6 million people a year, and a shocking one-third (!!) of people in the world are infected with the TB bacillus.  So thanks for bringing this home for us.

I'm sorry to hijack your story, but I've been thinking a lot about XDR-TB-guy too.  Aside from wondering whether he will be prosecuted for recklessly endangering the lives and health of so many people (maybe having XDR-TB is enough of a punishment? I'm not sure... but it's sure scary as hell...) and (as a commentor on your dkos diary pointed out) the potential for connection between his father-in-law (who works for the CDC on... TB) I also found myself wondering about the overall TB numbers in the US.

It's a little higher than I would have expected. The CDC says there were 13,767 reported new cases of TB in the USA last year.  (Infection rates were significantly higher among the "foreign-born," which probably has something to do with poverty....)

Here's something that, sadly, doesn't surprise me, it just makes me feel depressed:  The highest rate of new TB infections was in Washington DC, which had 12.6 cases per 100,000 people, nearly four times the national average.

Because DC is tiny, in terms of raw numbers it still had only 73 cases (compared to California with 2,781, or New York with 1,274, or Florida with 1,038) but your odds of getting TB in the nation's capital are four times higher than the national average.

Four times.

Which certainly has something to do with poverty.