Tuberculosis continues to be a major concern for health-care workers throughout the world. The numbers of tuberculosis cases have declined steadily in western and central Europe, North and South America, and the Middle East, and have increased in countries of the former Soviet Union and in sub-Saharan Africa. In the United States, there were a total of 14,871 tuberculosis cases (5.1/100,000 population) during 2003, representing a 1.9% decline in the rate from 2002. Tuberculosis rates…
From 1989 to 2003, a total of 279 distinct positive culture findings for M tuberculosis were identified. The annual incidence rates per 100,000 populations are shown in Figure 1. The incidence in 1989 was 5.2/100,000, decreased to 3.5/100,000 in 1993, increased to 11.1/100,000 in 1998, and reached 7.6/ 100,000 in 2003. An increasing trend in incidence rates of culture-positive tuberculosis was observed during the study period. This was statistically significant (x2 = 19.647; p = 0.0001)….
