Tag : Tuberculosis

Boston: Researchers discovered TB case rates to be persistently high and case detection to be low in jails, indicating the need for health organisations to step up efforts to stop the spread of TB among this high-risk demographic. A recent study done by the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) found that inmates had a nearly ten-fold increase in tuberculosis (TB) cases globally in 2019. The study was published in The Lancet Public Health, 125,105 of the 11 million people incarcerated worldwide developed tuberculosis in 2019, a rate of 1,148 cases per 100,000 people per year. Despite this high case rate, nearly half of all tuberculosis cases among incarcerated people were missed. The findings provide the first global and regional estimates of new tuberculosis cases among incarcerated people, a population at high risk of contracting this potentially fatal disease. The high case rate and low detection rate highlight the need for increased awareness and resources to reduce the burden of tuberculosis in prisons and other high-risk settings. "Our study showed that only 53 per cent of people that develop tuberculosis in prisons are diagnosed, which suggests that incarcerated people are neglected and have minimal healthcare services to diagnose tuberculosis," said study lead and corresponding author Dr Leonardo Martinez, assistant professor of epidemiology at BUSPH. To better understand TB rates among this population, Dr Martinez and colleagues acquired data from published research and from countries' federal officials to analyze TB prevalence and incidence in 193 countries at the country, regional, and global levels between 2000-2019. The team also calculated TB case detection rates per year in each country for 193 countries. The ...