MetroHealth Medical Center performs surveillance, treatment and care for people with tuberculosis for Cuyahoga County. The program also works in the control of tuberculosis, as this is a contagious disease.

The State of Ohio Administrative Code stipulates that tuberculosis is one of over one hundred contagious diseases that must be reported to local public health authorities.  The Tuberculosis Program at MetroHealth is supported by the MetroHealth Medical System, the Cuyahoga County Commissioners, Cuyahoga County Board of Health and the Cleveland Department of Public Health.

The website for the MetroHealth Tuberculosis Clinic can be accessed by clicking this link.

Dr Catherine Curley, Director of the clinic, reports that in 2007 there were 51 cases of active tuberculosis in Cuyahoga County for 2007. This is a slight increase from 2006. Nearly half of these cases (25) resided in Cleveland, with the remainder living in municipalities outside of Cleveland. Few cases were co-infected with HIV. Local, state and national trends have shown a slow decrease in cases his decade.

Patients with a positve TB skin test and those with latent tuberculosis are evaluated by the program and are offered treatment. in 2007, almost 6,000 individuals were tested for TB by the program. Over 2,100 showed a positive skin test and 999 were started on treatment for latent TB. Source: "Cuyahoga County TB Program: 2007 Annual Report".)

Here are recent surveillance statistics for 2007 abstracted from the 2007 Annual Report.

This table reports the country of origin of the cases diagnosed in 2007