Tuberculosis epidemiology

Abstract

A gradual return of tuberculosis has been noted in industrialised countries since the late eighties. The real world-wide trend of the disease is, however, still widely underrated, as shown by the discrepancy between the number of cases reported to the WHO and those estimated by the same on the basis of the annual risk of tuberculotic infections (ARTI). According to these calculations, it is forecast that by the year 2000 approx. 13,000,000 persons world-wide will have the disease. Also in Italy the disease has been on the increase since the late eighties and in 1995 the incidence rate estimated by the WHO was 18/100,000. In the last decade, however, the increase has been different for the various forms: 13% and 35% for pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis respectively. The causes contributing to this increase in western countries may be attributed to the decline in control programmes, migration from areas of high incidence and the spread of AIDS.