Decline in Tuberculosis Cases Continues : Health: Two-year trend is encouraging, but disease is still at epidemic levels in county, officials say.

Active tuberculosis cases in Los Angeles County fell by 7.5% in 1994, the second straight year of decline, county health officials said Thursday.

The county Department of Health Services said 1,794 new active cases of tuberculosis were reported in 1994, compared to 1,940 the year before. The downward trend in the number of cases appears to be continuing this year.

The decline was not enough for public health officials to declare the disease under control because the number of cases was still well above the pre-epidemic level of 1,200 reported in 1988.

Dr. Shirley Fannin, director of disease control programs for the county, said the 146 fewer cases reported in 1994 was a step in the right direction.

“It is heartening to see a drop-off from the peak two years in a row, but it is not time to get out the champagne and congratulate ourselves that the problem is over,” she said. “We are not out of the woods yet.”

She said the health department would not consider the county’s tuberculosis problem under control until it falls to 1,200 to 1,400 new cases a year.

Fannin said efforts by county health workers to identify and treat new tuberculosis cases were partly responsible for the turnaround, but added that an apparent slowdown of immigration to California and a drop-off in population growth also contributed to the downward trend.

“We went from more than 200,000 new babies in the county in the early 1990s to about 189,000 now, a good 6% drop,” she said.

Dr. Paul Davidson, director of the department’s tuberculosis control program, said the county still has one of the highest tuberculosis rates in the nation.

A report by the health department said 30% of the new cases in 1994 were reported among people ages 15 to 34. Males contracted the disease almost twice as frequently as females.