WHO: Global tuberculosis control - surveillance, planning, financing

WHO: Global tuberculosis control - surveillance, planning, financing

Using trends in case notifications to update estimates of incidence, WHO calculates that "there were 8.8 million new cases of TB in 2002, of which 3.9 million were smear-positive. The global incidence rate of TB (per capita) was growing at approximately 1.1% per year, and the number of cases at 2.4% per year. The growth in case notifications has been much faster in African countries with high HIV prevalence, and in eastern Europe (mainly the former Soviet Union), but growth has been decelerating in both these regions since the mid 1990s.......Treatment success under DOTS for the 2001 cohort was 82% on average, the same as for the 2000 cohort. As in previous years, treatment success was substantially below average in the WHO African Region (71%) and in eastern Europe (70%). Low treatment success in these two regions can be attributed, in part, to the complications of HIV co-infection and drug resistance, respectively. Equally important, though, is the failure of NTPs to monitor the outcome of treatment for all patients."

This is the 8th WHO annual report on global TB control. It includes data on case notifications and treatment outcomes from all national TB control programmes that have reported to WHO, together with an analysis of plans, budgets, expenditures, and constraints on DOTS expansion for 22 high-burden countries (HBCs). Eight consecutive years of data are now available to assess progress towards the 2005 global targets for case detection (70%) and treatment success (85%).