The number of tuberculosis cases is at its highest for more than 15 years, figures from the Public Health Laboratory Service show. Provisional data for 2000 show TB notifications in England and Wales have risen by 10. 6 per cent, to 6,797 over the past year, the highest since 1983. Dr John Watson of the PHLS communicable diseases surveillance centre said the latest increase meant there had been 'an overall rise of 34 per cent since 1987'. This was 'a cause for concern in a disease that had declined tenfold over the previous 40 years'. Men accounted for three-quarters of the rise, with twothirds of the increase recorded in London.