UK tuberculosis rates highest in 30 years

[Gert van der Hoek]

UK tuberculosis rates highest in 30 years

LONDON | Wed Nov 3, 2010

(Reuters) - Cases of tuberculosis in Britain reached their highest level for 30 years in 2009 with 9,040 cases and the number of new drug-resistant TB cases has almost doubled in the past decade, government data showed on Thursday.

An annual tuberculosis (TB) report from the government's Health Protection Agency also said the number of multi-drug resistant cases of the disease had also doubled in the last decade, although the proportion of these extremely difficult to treat cases remains low at around 1.2 percent.

Read more

Link to full report

Tuberculosis in the UK: Annual report on tuberculosis surveillance in the UK 2010

Authors: Health Protection Agency

Publication date: November 2010


Synopsis

The trend of a gradual rise in the number of tuberculosis cases observed over the last 20 years continued in 2009, with a 4.2% rise giving an overall rate of 15 cases per 100,000 population in the UK.

A total of 9,040 cases of tuberculosis were reported in 2009 with the majority of disease concentrated in urban centres. All 19 primary care organisations with a rate of 40 per 100,000 or more were in major urban areas. London accounts for 38% of cases, with a rate of 44.4 per 100,000.

HPA Tuberculosis Home Page

.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: UK tuberculosis rates highest in 30 years

Massive increase in TB in London to be revealed

Insanitary conditions and overcrowding in East End are to blame for return of the Dickensian disease

By Robert Fox

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Tuberculosis, known as the white plague in Victorian England, is returning to London at an alarming rate, according to a set of studies and reports due to be released this weekend. London now is the only major European city where the rate is actually rising, according to one report.

TB was once thought to be a factor of Charles Dickens?s times, and was virtually banished through most of the last century. Last year, however, some 9,000 cases were reported in the UK, 40 per cent in the capital.

These represent a 50 per cent increase in reported cases in London over the past decade ? up from 2,309 in 1999 to 3,450 last year. This, say authors of the reports to be released in the coming days, is certainly an underestimate ? because they have evidence that only 70 per cent of all Tuberculosis cases are being picked up and treated.

At least 250 of the cases, according to one of the experts, have proved resistant to the usual antibiotic treatments. Another worry is that the disease is now in Britain?s jails. In 2000 TB swept through New York jails and spread among jail staff. It was when a white jailer died that the authorities released $80 million to tackle the outbreak.

This led experts in infectious diseases on both sides of the Atlantic to warn the British government that the same sort of outbreak might be imminent in Britain ? particularly as a rise in TB cases was being reported across eastern and central European.

However, the assumption that TB is being spread by recently arrived immigrants in London is erroneous, according to one frontline medical practitioner in the East End I spoke to. ?Most of the cases occur in people who have been here at least three years,? he said.

This suggests that what?s behind the rise in TB cases is poverty, insanitary conditions and overcrowded housing, particularly in London?s East End.


Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/72856...-in-tb-in-london-to-be-revealed#ixzz18HWZVZIQ

 

[Shiloh]

Re: UK tuberculosis rates highest in 30 years

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/16/AR2010121605956.html

London, tuberculosis capital of Western Europe
By MARIA CHENG
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 16, 2010; 7:01 PM

LONDON -- The number of people infected with tuberculosis has jumped by 50 percent in London in the last decade, making it the tuberculosis capital of Western Europe, a new report says..