Canada: First Nations tbc statistics obscured

Federal MPs on the House of Commons health committee got an earful Tuesday morning from an army of First Nations chiefs, doctors and public health experts who said Ottawa's plan to combat TB is failing First Nations people.
Data on outbreaks and infection rates are spotty and kept secret under the guise of patient confidentiality. Jurisdictional squabbles between the federal and provincial governments stymie treatment and prevention programs on reserves. A nearly 20-year-old national plan to combat the disease is only slowly being reviewed. There are no national standards on monitoring and controlling TB and it's tricky to do simple things like fly in a mobile X-ray unit to help confirm a diagnosis in a remote community.
Kimberley Barker, a doctor and adviser to the Assembly of First Nations, said Ottawa has so little control over its regional operations that there's little accountability on TB spending.
That bleak assessment follows a Winnipeg Free Press investigation that found some Manitoba communities have recorded some of the highest TB rates in the world since the 1970s.
Places like Lac Brochet have recorded 636 cases per 100,000 people, a fact Chief Joseph Dantouze reminded the Commons health committee of Tuesday.Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Inaction+infighting+have+stalled+effort+reserves+Health+officials/2934665/story.html#ixzz0m3qaZOnS

California: San Diego/Tijuana statistics

Once a disease thought to have been eradicated across most of the developed world, today the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) is again on the rise. As the most heavily trafficked land border crossing in the world with close to 60 million crossings a year and an unparalleled level of bidirectional border crossers, the San Diego-Tijuana border region is particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases such as TB. The incidence of TB in San Diego remains one of the highest in the nation and was double the U.S. national average in 2007. The incidence of TB in Tijuana is over 2.8 times the Mexican national average.
The report identified several concrete steps that could be taken by the government, business and the philanthropic sector to reduce the incidence of TB in the San Diego-Tijuana border region by investing in laboratory diagnostics, prevention, infection control, expanded surveillance and expanded cooperation of area employers in TB health education, diagnosis and treatment. In the case of laboratory diagnostics no such services currently exist in Baja California yet could be provided for less than $213,000 a year permitting the state to accurately identify, detect and diagnose tuberculosis cases using cultures and drug susceptibility testing.
Additional key findings:
Over 600 cases of pulmonary TB were confirmed and reported annually in Tijuana in 2006 and 2007 with an overall rate of 46 per 100,000 inhabitants, which is substantially higher than rates in neighboring Mexican states.
Since 2000 there has been an average of over 300 new TB cases per year in San Diego County, of which nearly 40 percent were born in Mexico according to the San Diego County Health & Human Services Agency.
The estimated cost of TB in San Diego is a minimum of $21.3 million annually for an average of 300 cases. This includes approximately $12.7 million in lost earnings for patients due to their disease.
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100419007352&newsLang=en

Tuberculosis: the return of the white plague? Statistics

The last few weeks have seen an explosion of reports concerning the status of the worldwide fight against tuberculosis, largely precipitated by World TB Day last month on March 24. Tuberculosis was once considered a disease of the past, an illness, like diphtheria, thought to have faded away with the Victorian era as a serious cause for concern. Indeed, for many people today any mention of TB might still be more likely to evoke thoughts about the death of Helen Burns due to “consumption” in Jane Eyre, than to incite any sense of panic. And while many people from more developed countries might not have ever known anyone personally to have been infected with TB (I know I haven’t), the reality is that TB has resurged as one of the most pervasive and deadly diseases in the world. What was once historically referred to as the “white plague” is today thought to cause one death every 15 seconds. It is estimated that approximately one third of the world’s population is currently infected with TB, with higher incidence rates found primarily in African and Asian countries, and 1 in 10 of these latent infections resulting in death. The rate at which TB spreads is equally alarming: the most recent data estimates that a new person is infected with TB every second of every day.
http://www.practicalethicsnews.com/practicalethics/2010/04/the-last-few-weeks-have-seen-an-explosion-of-reports--concerning-the-status-of-the-worldwide-fight-against-tuberculosis-larg.html

Nigeria: 120,000 new cases per year

Dr Busayo Agbana on Friday disclosed that Nigeria records about 120,000 new cases of tuberculosis every year, being the highest in Africa.
Agbana also revealed that the country ranks fourth on the prevalence rate, with a 536 persons infected among 100,000.
Agbana, who works at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, made these revelations at the World TB day 2010, organised by the Excellence Foundation International in Ilorin.
He noted that increase in the growth rate of the disease rose from 2.2 percent in the early 90s to over 19.1 percent currently
http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20100411161018