More Than 9,000 TB Cases Reported In UK Last Year

TB cases in the UK rose 5 per cent to more than 9,000 in 2011, according to a new report by the Health Protection Agency (HPA). London alone reported upwards of 3,000 cases.

According to researchers, TB continues to disproportionately affect those in hard to reach and vulnerable groups, particularly migrants, the homeless, problem drug users and prisoners. This has thrown up the need for specific strategies to tackle the disease.

Tuberculosis is one of the most infectious and deadly diseases. Caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB usually affects the lungs, but can affect other parts of the body as well. It is transmitted through air, when someone who has the infection coughs or sneezes, but it requires close prolonged contact in order to spread from person to person.

Approximately one-third of the world's population is infected by TB.

"Despite the observed increase in TB cases in 2011, this provisional data should be interpreted with caution because numbers are likely to change due to late notifications and de-notification of cases. It is therefore too early to determine whether this is a return to the upward trend of cases seen in the past two decades in the UK," said Ibrahim Abubakar, head of the TB section at the HPA.

"In order to reduce TB cases in the future, it's very important that health commissioners, especially in parts of the country with the highest rates of TB, prioritise the delivery of appropriate clinical and public health TB services," he added.

Table 1. Provisional TB Case Reports By the UK, 2007-2011

Table 2. Provisional TB case reports by region, England, 2007-2011