About 39,000 new cases of tuberculosis were reported last year in Japan, down some 4,400 from the previous year, the first decline in four years, the health ministry has reported.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry recently said 39,384 people registered themselves as having tuberculosis in 2000, down from 43,818 in 1999.
However, the average age of such patients rose, with the survey saying 38.7 percent of the patients last year were 70 or older, up from 37.8 percent in 1999.
The ministry said that the figures indicate that many patients contracted tuberculosis at younger ages.
But the officials added that the symptoms of the disease only begin to show when the patients get older and become weak.
Osaka Prefecture had the highest rate of people who contracted the disease in 2000, while Nagano Prefecture had the lowest, it said. In Osaka, 61.5 people out of 100,000 residents registered new cases, compared with 13 out of 100,000 in Nagano.