Korea had more than 40,000 patients with tuberculosis last year, the highest number counted by the state-run disease control agency since 2001, officials said.

According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40,126 tuberculosis patients were newly discovered in 2012, which accounted for 43 percent of patients with infectious diseases in the same year. Patients suffering from varicella were the second-largest group with 21,770, followed by patients with trombiculiasis and epidemic parotitis, with 8,632 and 7,541, respectively.

The number with AIDS and Hansen’s disease, however, fell 2.7 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively, from the previous year. The country had no reports of patients with measles last year, officials added.

(christory@heraldcorp.com)