Epidemiology of tuberculosis
Recent tuberculosis (TB) notification rates in New Zealand have been around 10 per 100,000. Incidence has decreased slightly in recent years to around 7 per 100,000.
Higher rates of disease in New Zealand compared to other developed countries may be attributed to socioeconomic deprivation and immigration from high-incidence countries. Over two-thirds of all TB cases in New Zealand are in foreign-born individuals.
The highest rates of disease are seen in individuals in urban areas, particularly Auckland and South Auckland
of non-European ethnicity, particularly ‘Other’ and Pacific People.
Type, management and outcome of tuberculosis cases
Two-thirds of TB cases are pulmonary. Of the extra-pulmonary cases, the most common sites of infection are lymph nodes.
Morbidity and mortality from TB have been declining in recent years.
Multi-drug resistance occurs in less than 1% of all TB isolates.
Surveillance of tuberculosis
Surveillance is important for supporting the local management of TB, monitoring disease incidence and identifying risk factors.
A medical practitioner who diagnoses or suspects a case of new or relapsed TB must, under the Tuberculosis Act 1948, notify the case to the local medical officer of health.
It is not a legal requirement for clinicians to notify the local medical officer of health about people receiving treatment for latent TB infection. However, clinicians are asked to report cases to the local medical officer of health, for monitoring purposes, if the cases are of latent TB infection that are, or are recommended to be, under treatment.
Recent changes to surveillance include alterations to the TB case report form; the production of an annual surveillance report for TB (see the Public Health Surveillance website, http://www.surv.esr.cri.nz)
DNA fingerprinting of all isolates.
Recent improvements to the system include: laboratory notification of positive results to identify un-notified cases.
For the latest epidemiological information, see the Public Health Surveillance website (http://www.surv.esr.cri.nz/).
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/tuberculosis-control-nz-guidelines-2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment