MARION, Ala.—Tuberculosis, a global scourge, has mostly been eradicated in the United States, but minorities and poor people who lack regular health care remain vulnerable.
Marion, the town where Coretta Scott King was raised, is just that kind of community: the seat of Alabama’s poorest county, where 47 percent live in poverty and the per-capita annual income is just $13,000.
Spurred by two tuberculosis deaths last year, Alabama public health officials tried reaching out in Marion, and were mostly ignored or turned away. Many people seemed suspicious and unenthusiastic about providing blood samples to the government. Efforts in late 2014 to trace the contacts of people who did test positive were stymied; few in the town of 3,600 seemed eager to tell on their neighbors.
“We had a very, very poor turnout. Our turnout was so bad, we actually had people throwing beer bottles at us,” said Pam Barrett, director of the Alabama Department of Public Health division for tuberculosis control.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long called for targeting the fight against tuberculosis where the disease remains most prevalent, among poor and minority populations. The airborne bacterial infection spreads when people live in unhealthy conditions in close proximity and get little health care. Blacks and Hispanics are eight times more likely to carry it than whites are, according to the CDC.
“While most people think of TB as a disease that does not affect the U.S., Marion, Alabama is experiencing a TB outbreak that is worse than in many developing countries,” the UN Special Envoy on Tuberculosis, Eric P. Goosby, said in a statement Wednesday. “Unfortunately, in many areas of the country, funding for community education and outreach on TB by local health departments is scarce or non-existent.”
