Los Angeles County officials have asked for federal assistance in analyzing and containing an outbreak of tuberculosis among the city’s homeless population. Mabel Aragon, a spokeswoman for the county health department, said on Friday that the agency was still trying to confirm the number and type of cases. The Los Angeles Times reported that health workers had identified about 4,650 people who were probably exposed to the contagious disease on skid row in downtown Los Angeles. The United States had about 10,528 cases of tuberculosis in 2011, and there were 529 deaths from the disease in 2009, according to the latest full year for which statistics were available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
